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THE  GOSPEL  FOR 
A  WORLD  OF  SIN 


THE  GOSPEL  FOR 
A  WORLD  OF  SIN 


A  COMPANION-VOLUME  TO 
"THE  GOSPEL  FOR  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT" 


BY 


HENRY  VAN  DYKE 

P.O.  (PRINCETON,  HARVARD,  YALE),  LL.D.  (UNION) 

PASTOR  OF  THE  BRICK  CHURCH  IN  NBW  YORK 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1904 

All  rights  reserved 


. 


COPYRIGHT,  1899, 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped  March,  1899.      Reprinted  September, 
1899;  August,  1900. ;  November,  1901 ;  November,  1904. 


Nortouotf 
J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  ft  Smith 
Norwood  MMS.  U.S.A. 


£0 

JAMES   OKMSBEE   MUEEAY 

DEAN   OF   PRINCETON   UNIVERSITY 

A    TEACHER   OF   LITERATURE   AND  LIFE 

A   PREACHER   OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS   AND   LOVE 

A   SERVANT   OF    HUMANITY  AND    CHRIST 

tZHffe  Book  is  Jietiicatea 

IN    GRATEFUL    AFFECTION 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  is  not  meant  to  present  a  theory 
of  the  Atonement. 

On  the  contrary,  it  is  meant  to  teach  that 
there  is  no  theory  broad  or  deep  enough  to 
embrace  or  explain  the  fact. 

A  sinful  world  cannot  possibly  know  all  that 
is  needed  to  reconcile  it  with  a  holy  God. 

Sin  itself,  in  its  root  and  in  its  relations,  con- 
tains a  mystery. 

So  does  love. 

But  the  Atonement  is  the  work  of  God's 
love  in  its  bearing  upon  man's  sin.  Therefore 
it  must  include  more  than  we  can  explain. 

What  Christ  did  to  take  away  the  sin  of  the 
world  was  precisely  all  that  was  needed,  — 
neither  more  nor  less.  What  we  know  of  this 
need  is  what  we  know  about  the  Atonement. 

One  man  sees  one  segment  of  the  circle  more 
clearly.  Another  man  sees  another  segment, 
vii 


viii  Preface 

No  man  sees  the  whole  circle.  But  if  each  one 
sees  his  little  arc  of  experience  in  right  relation 
to  the  centre,  he  sees  it  as  part  of  the  truth. 

The  false  theories  of  the  Atonement  are 
those  which  claim  to  be  final  and  exclusive. 
That  claim  breaks  the  line  of  curvature  and 
conceals  the  true  centre. 

The  saving  work  of  Jesus  Christ  for  man  as 
a  sinner,  —  that  is  what  the  Atonement  means 
to  us.  I  think  it  surpasses  all  explanations  of 
it,  just  as  life  is  more  than  biology. 

HENRY  VAN  DYKE. 

THE  BRICK  CHURCH  MANSE, 
NEW  YORK  CITY, 
February  28,  1899. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    THE  MIST  AND  THE  GULF     ....  1 

II.    THE  SIN  OF  THE  WORLD       ....  11 

1.  The  Presence  of  Evil      ....  14 

2.  The  Unanswerable  Question    ...  20 

3.  The  Sense  of  Sin 29 

4.  The  Hopeful  Fear 36 

III.  THE  BIBLE  WITHOUT  CHRIST        ...  49 

1.  The  Unbroken  Shadow    ....  54 

2.  The  Intolerable  Light      ....  67 

IV.  CHRIST'S  MISSION  TO  THE  INNER  LIFE        .  87 

1.  The  Kingdom  is  within  You  ...  90 

2.  The  Picture  of  Jesus  in  the  Soul  .         .  96 

3.  Peace  with  God  through  Christ       ,         .  101 

4.  Newness  of  Life 119 

V.    THE  PERFECTION  OF  ATONEMENT         .        .  129 

1.  The  Love  that  meets  All  Needs      .        .  142 

2.  The  Love  that  passeth  Knowledge  .        .  156 

VI.    THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  CROSS  169 


I 

THE  MIST  AND  THE  GULF 


Tho'  Sin  too  oft,  when  smitten  by  Thy  rod, 
Rail  at « Blind  Fate '  with  many  a  vain  '  Alas ! ' 
From  sin  through  sorrow  into  Thee  we  pass 
By  that  same  path  our  true  forefathers  trod ; 
And  let  not  Reason  fail  me,  nor  the  sod 
Draw  from  my  death  Thy  living  flower  and  grass, 
Before  I  learn  that  Love,  which  is,  and  was, 
My  Father,  and  my  Brother,  and  my  God. 

— ALFRED  TENNYSON,  Doubt  and  Prayer. 


THE  MIST  AND   THE   GULF 

DOUBT  is  the  blinding  mist  that  rises  between  Doubt  and 
man's  spiritual  vision  and  the  eternal  truth.         sin- 

Sin  is  the  great  gulf  that  separates  man's 
moral  character  from  the  divine  ideal. 

The  mists  gather,  and  thicken,  and  melt,  and 
disperse.  The  gulf  is  always  there.  Ages  of 
doubt  come  and  go,  in  an  abiding  world  of  sin. 

The  pain  of  doubt  is  an  evidence  that  man 
was  made  for  faith.  The  shame  of  sin  is  an 
evidence  that  man  was  created  for  holiness. 

A  gospel  for  humanity  must  be  good  news  Asympa- 
both  for  doubters  and  for  sinners.     The  depth  theticSf°sPel- 
of  its  sympathy  will  always  be  the  measure  of 
its  power. 

It  must  not  condemn  doubt  as  if  it  were  a 
sin :  neither  must  it  deny  sin  as  if  it  were 
merely  an  illusion  of  doubt. 

To  doubting  men  and  to  sinful  men  it  must 
speak  the  message  of  a  divine  love,  —  a  reveal- 
ing love  that  pierces  the  mist  with  rays  of 
light  and  brings  clearness  and  joy  to  the  con- 


4  The  Mist  and  the   Gulf 

fused  and  darkened  spirit,  —  a  redeeming  love 
that  bridges  the  gulf  of  separation  and  leads 
the  guilty  conscience  back  into  peace  and  har- 
mony with  God. 

Doubt  is  An  age  of  doubt  is  a  transient  phase  of  a  sin- 

transient.        ,,   -.  ^  i        rm  i  j      T_J.   •     J.T, 

ful  world.  There  is  always  some  doubt  in  the 
world,  just  as  there  is  always  some  moisture  in 
the  air.  At  certain  times  and  in  certain  places 
this  moisture  is  increased  and  rolls  together  in 
gray  mist  and  clinging  fog. 

There  are  certain  stages  and  conditions  of 
human  thought  in  which  the  difficulties  of  be- 
lieving in  a  spiritual  world  are  multiplied  and 
grow  more  dense  and  impenetrable.  The  soul 
of  man  seems  to  be  shut  in  by  a  narrower  hori- 
zon. Things  that  are  near  loom  larger  in  the 
mist.  Things  that  are  far  are  lost  to  view. 
The  atmosphere  in  which  the  spirit  moves  is 
heavy  and  bewildering.  Men  are  confused, 
hesitating,  questioning,  despondent,  in  regard 
to  all  that  lies  beyond  the  reach  of  the  senses. 
Doubt,  always  present  though  diffused,  becomes 
so  thick  and  pressing,  that  it  overshadows  the 
age. 

Through  such  an  age  I  think  we  have  been 
passing,  in  this  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Of  the  intellectual  causes  which  have 


The  Mist  and  the  Gulf  5 

led  to  this  increase  of  doubt  ;  of  the  qualities 
which  characterize  it,  —  qualities  for  the  most 
part  sympathetic  and  hopeful,  —  its  reverence 
for  the  questioned  faith,  its  deep  unrest  and 
sorrow,  its  loyalty  to  ethical  ideals ;  and  of 
the  gospel  which  it  needs,  the  gospel  of  the 
personal  Christ  clearly  revealing  the  reality 
and  fatherhood  of  God,  the  liberty  and  re- 
sponsibility of  man,  and  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  —  of  these  things  I  have  written  in 
a  former  book. 

But  such  a  presentation  of  the  gospel,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  a  particular  age,  and  with 
the  purpose  of  meeting  certain  intellectual 
needs,  certain  urgent  questionings  of  the 
human  spirit,  could  not  be  (and  indeed  it  was 
not  intended  to  be)  complete  and  sufficient. 
Man  has  other  needs  than  those  of  the  intel- 
lect. After  the  question  of  the  reality  of  God 
is  answered,  then  remains  the  question  of  our 
personal  relation  to  Him. 

The  age  of  doubt  will  pass,  is  already  pass-  The  dissolv- 
ing, and  we  are  entering,  if  the  signs  of  the  ingQf  d(jubtt 
times  fail  not,  upon  a  new  era  of  faith. 

There  is  a  renaissance  of  religion.  Spiritual 
instincts  and  cravings  assert  themselves  and 
demand  their  rights.  The  loftier  aspirations, 
the  larger  hopes  of  mankind,  are  leading  the 


6  The  Mist  and  the   Gulf 

new  generation  forward  into  the  twentieth 
century  as  men  who  advance  to  a  noble  con- 
flict and  a  glorious  triumph,  under  the  cap- 
taincy of  the  Christ  that  was  and  is  to  be. 
The  educated  youth  of  to-day  are  turning  with 
a  mighty,  world-wide  movement  toward  the 
banner  of  a  militant,  expectant,  imperial 
Christianity.  The  discoveries  of  science,  once 
deemed  hostile  and  threatening  to  religion,  are 
in  process  of  swift  transformation  into  the 
materials  of  a  new  defence  of  the  faith.  The 
achievements  of  commerce  and  social  organiza- 
tion have  made  new  and  broad  highways  around 
the  world  for  the  onward  march  of  the  believ- 
ing host.  Already  we  can  discern  the  bright- 
ness of  another  great  age  of  faith. 

When  doubt       But  an  age  of  faith,  when  the  mist  of  doubt 
dissolves,        -g  dissoiyed  and  driven  away,  is  always  the  time 

sin  is  made 

clear.  when  the  gulf  of  sin  is  most  clearly  visible. 

The  souls  that  are  most  sure  of  the  reality  of 
God  and  the  future  life  are  always  those  that 
feel  most  deeply  their  separation  from  Him  and 
their  guilty  uncleanness  in  His  sight.  The  evil 
that  is  in  their  own  hearts  presses  upon  them 
more  heavily,  the  more  vividly  they  realize  the 
actual  existence  of  the  spiritual  realm  and  its 
eternal  significance.  The  evil  that  is  in  the 
world  does  not  disappear  nor  change,  through 


The  Mist  and  the   Gulf  1 

all  the  coming  and  going,  the  darkening  and  Sin  also 
dissolving  of   human  doubts  in  regard   to  its  7l    ds,a 
origin,  nature,   and   meaning.     It   remains   an 
unalterable   fact   in   human   experience.      The 
interpretation  which  religious  faith  gives  to  it 
intensifies  the  necessity  of   a  divine  salvation 
from  it. 

Those  who  have  accepted  the  gospel  for  an 
age  of  doubt  are  those  who  feel  most  keenly  the 
need  of  the  gospel  for  a  world  of  sin. 

There  cannot  be  two  gospels.    I  do  not  believe   The  unity  of 
that  there  is  any  essential  difference  or  contra-  J?  gospel  in 

J  Christ. 

diction  between  the  message  which  Christianity 
has  for  one  age  and  that  which  it  has  for 
another.  It  is  always  the  glad  tidings  of  the 
personal  Christ,  the  revealer  of  God  and  the 
Saviour  of  men.  The  application  of  this  mes- 
sage is  as  wide  and  various  as  human  need  and 
longing,  hope  and  fear,  sorrow  and  sin. 

To  those  who  are  doubtful  and  confused,  to 
those  who  have  lost  the  sense  of  spiritual 
things,  the  divine  voice  says,  "  This  is  my  be- 
loved Son;  hear  him."1 

To  those  who  are  sinful  and  sorrowful,  upon 
whom  the  sense  of  evil  rests  like  an  intolera- 
ble burden,  the  voice  says,  "  Behold  the  Lamb 

i  Luke  ix.  35. 


8 


The  Mist  and  the  Gulf 


Christ  the 
Revealer  is 
Christ  the 
Saviour. 


Companion 
volumes. 


of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world."1 

These  two  elements  of  the  gospel  are  inter- 
woven and  inseparable.  Christ  could  not  take 
away  the  sin  of  the  world  unless  He  were  the 
Son  of  God.  Christ  would  not  be  the  divine 
Saviour  unless  He  took  away  the  sin  of  the 
world. 

In  trying  to  set  forth  the  personal  Christ  as 
God's  answer  to  the  doubts  and  questionings 
of  this  age,  I  could  not  help  speaking  of  Him 
as  the  deliverer  from  sin.2  Nor  will  it  be  pos- 
sible to  present  His  sacrifice  on  the  cross  as  the 
world's  redemption  without  confessing  a  con- 
stant faith  in  Him  as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh. 

Indeed,  this  second  book  is  written  chiefly 
because  I  feel  the  need  of  a  fuller  utterance 
to  complete  the  message  of  the  former  book. 
I  would  have  the  two  books  stand  together 
and  interpret  each  other.  They  are  but  win- 
dows looking  toward  Christ  from  two  differ- 
ent points  of  view. 

The  message  of  the  first  book  was  this  : 
Christ  saves  us  from  doubt,  because  He  is  the 
revelation  of  God. 

The   message   of  the   second   book  is  this : 

1  John  i.  29. 

2  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  pp.  75  ff.,  162  ff. 


The  Mist  and  the   Gulf  9 

Christ  is  the  revelation  of  God,  because  He 
saves  us  from  sin. 

Many  of  the  men  and  women  whom  the  The 
preacher  meets  to-day  are  or  have  been  doubt- 
ers.  All  are  sinners.  He  must  speak  out  of 
his  own  heart  to  theirs.  His  word  must  have 
the  comfort  which  can  only  come  from  one  who 
has  been  comforted,  the  peace  which  can  only 
be  declared  by  one  who  has  sought  and  found 
it  in  the  experience  of  reconciliation  with  God, 
the  sympathetic  power  which  can  only  flow 
from  one  who  knows  both  the  burden  of  in- 
iquity and  the  blessedness  of  forgiveness 
through  Christ. 

The  gospel  for  a  world  of  sin  cannot  be 
preached  by  any  except  those  who  need  it  for 
themselves.  An  angel  could  not  deliver  it 
aright.  Its  language  is  always  in  the  first  per- 
son plural,  drawing  the  speaker  and  the  hearers 
into  a  brotherhood  of  penitence  and  forgive- 
ness. 

"  God  commendeth  his  love  toward  us,  in 
that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died 
for  us. ,"i 

Christ  Himself  did  not  come  to  preach  this 
gospel. 

1  Romans  v.  8. 


10  The  Mist  and  the   Gulf 

He  came  to  live  it. 

It  was  when  the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul 
and  John  had  seen  Him  delivered  for  their 
offences  and  raised  again  for  their  justifica- 
tion that  they  began  to  understand  and  preach 
this  gospel  for  a  world  of  sin.  Ever  since  it 
has  had  but  one  message. 

"  Through  his  name  whosoever  believeth  in  him 
shall  receive  remission  of  sins."1 

"  Grod  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto 
himself."2 

"If  any  man  sin,  we  have  an  advocate  with  the 
Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous :  and  he  is  the 
propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours  only, 
but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world."3 

1  Acts  x.  43.  2  2  Cor.  ii.  19.  »  1  John  ii.  1,  2. 


n 

THE   SIN  OF  THE  WORLD 


Judge  me  not  as  I  judge  myself,  O  Lord ! 

Show  me  some  mercy,  or  I  may  not  live  : 
Let  the  good  in  me  go  without  reward ; 

Forgive  the  evil  I  must  not  forgive. 

—  WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS,  Conscience. 


II 

THE  SIN   OF  THE  WORLD 

THE  sins  of  the  world  are  many.    The  sin  of  The  soiidar- 
the  world  is  one.  ityofsin. 

It  is  like  the  grass  of  the  field.  Below  the 
separate  shoots  and  blades,  which  stand  up  in- 
dividual and  distinct,  as  if  each  one  grew  by 
itself,  there  is  a  network  of  branching  roots 
and  fibres,  knotted  together,  interwoven,  tena- 
cious, spreading  far,  and  propagating  itself 
more  swiftly  the  more  it  is  cut  and  divided. 
The  separation  is  on  the  surface.  The  unity  is 
underground. 

But  before  we  can  have  any  idea  of  what  sin 
means,  either  separately  in  the  individual  or 
collectively  in  the  race,  we  must  give  some 
thought  to  the  problem  of  evil,  starting  not 
from  the  point  of  view  of  philosophy,  but  from 
the  point  of  view  of  experience, 
13 


14  The  Sin  of  the  World 


The  Presence  of  Evil 

The  hidden  Beneath  all  the  particular  forms  of  evil  that 
exist  in  the  world,  men  have  always  recognized 
a  common  ground  of  evil  in  human  nature. 
Something  has  happened  to  the  race,  some- 
thing has  entered  into  it  and  taken  possession 
of  its  vital  powers,  which  makes  it  bring  forth 
bad  fruit.  This  is  not  a  theory.  It  is  a  fact. 

The  experience  of  mankind,  thus  far,  is  a 
mass  of  cumulative  evidence  that  there  is  a 
radical  twist  in  humanity  which  runs  through 
it  from  top  to  bottom,  and  produces  crooked 
results  in  every  sphere  of  human  life.  So  far 
as  we  can  judge  by  our  own  experience,  and 
by  observation  of  others,  every  child  of  man 
who  comes  to  moral  consciousness,  comes  not 
only  with  a  freedom  of  will  which  makes  the 
choice  of  evil  possible,  but  also  with  a  pro- 
pensity which  makes  such  a  choice  probable. 
This  probability  is  so  strong  that  we  always 
reckon  with  it,  in  dealing  with  ourselves  or 
with  others. 

No  man  gets  fairly  started  in  the  journey  of 
life  without  knowing  that  he  has  a  tendency  to 
go  wrong.  It  is  the  folly  of  the  fool  that  he 


The  Sin  of  the   World  15 

forgets  it.  The  wise  man  remembers,  fears, 
and  tries  to  guard  against  it. 

Human  society  is  organized  around  two  facts:  Society  on 
the  desire  of  good  and  the  recognition  of  evil.  9uard- 
Every  institution  in  the  world  which  is  of  any 
value  has  in  it  a  defensive,  corrective,  punitory 
side,  which  is  an  unconscious  confession  that 
mankind  is  prone  to  do  wrong.  Men  take  this 
for  granted  in  all  the  relations  of  life.  Whether 
they  are  making  systems  of  education  or  of 
government,  whether  they  are  devising  enter- 
prises to  increase  their  property,  or  laws  to 
protect  it,  or  wills  to  distribute  it,  they  always 
take  into  account  the  fact  that  there  is  a  strain 
of  evil  running  through  all  humanity. 

The  advance  of  modern  science  and  philos-  The  warn- 
ophy  has  not  reduced  or  weakened  the  evidence  inff°{Phi~ 

c    •  losophy. 

of  this  common  ground  of  evil  in  the  world. 
On  the  contrary,  it  has  done  much  to  deepen 
and  intensify  the  conviction  that  there  is  a  rad- 
ical twist  in  human  nature.  The  easy-going 
and  superficial  optimism  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, is  thoroughly  discredited  and  obsolete. 
Men  have  turned  away  from  Rousseau's  skin- 
deep  philosophy  of  the  "  original  goodness  and 
unlimited  perfectibility"  of  human  nature,  to 
the  profounder  view  of  the  Hebrew  prophets, 
the  Greek  dramatists,  Dante's  Divine  Comedy, 


16  The  Sin  of  the  World 

Shakespeare's  Hamlet,  Tennyson's  Idylls  of 
the  King,  the  great  poetry  of  all  lands  and 
ages,  —  the  clearer,  deeper,  sadder  view,  which 
sees  the  mysterious  shadow  resting  on  the  life 
of  man,  and  traces  the  lines  of  conflict,  disaster, 
and  death  that  run  through  human  history, 
back  to  their  origin  in  the  gulf  which  separates 
man's  moral  character  from  the  divine  ideal. 
The  testi-  Science,  with  its  new  theory  of  evolution, 
mony  of  puts  a  stern  emphasis  upon  the  strength  of  the 
ties  which  bind  man  to  the  brute.  It  lays  bare 
the  workings  of  the  selfish,  sensual,  egotistical 
impulses  in  the  career  of  the  race.  It  lengthens 
the  cords  and  strengthens  the  stakes  of  the 
fatal  net  of  heredity  which  holds  all  men  to- 
gether in  an  entanglement  of  defects  of  nature 
and  taints  of  blood. 

"  I  know  of  no  study,"  wrote  Professor  Hux- 
ley, "  which  is  so  unutterably  saddening  as  that 
of  the  evolution  of  humanity  as  set  forth  in  the 
annals  of  history.  Out  of  the  darkness  of  pre- 
historic ages  man  emerges  with  the  marks  of  his 
lowly  origin  strong  upon  him.  He  is  a  brute, 
only  more  intelligent  than  the  other  brutes; 
a  blind  prey  to  impulses  which  as  often  as  not 
lead  him  to  destruction;  a  victim  to  endless 
illusions  which  make  his  mental  existence  a 
terror  and  a  burden,  and  fill  his  physical  life 


The  Sin  of  the   World  17 

with  barren  toil  and  battle.  He  attains  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  comfort,  and  develops  a  more 
or  less  workable  theory  of  life  in  such  favourable 
situations  as  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia  or  of 
Egypt,  and  then  for  thousands  and  thousands 
of  years  struggles  with  various  fortunes,  at- 
tended by  infinite  wickedness,  bloodshed,  and 
misery,  to  maintain  himself  at  this  point  against 
the  greed  and  ambition  of  his  fellow-men.  He 
makes  a  point  of  killing  and  otherwise  perse- 
cuting all  those  who  first  try  to  get  him  to 
move  on ;  and  when  he  has  moved  a  step 
farther  he  foolishly  confers  post-mortem  deifi- 
cation on  his  victims.  He  exactly  repeats  the 
process  with  all  who  want  to  move  a  step  yet 
farther."1 

This  was  written  by  a  teacher  of  science,  for 
a  periodical  called  The  Nineteenth  Century. 
If  it  had  been  uttered  by  a  Hebrew  prophet,  in 
the  sixth  century  before  Christ,  it  could  not 
give  a  darker  picture  of  human  nature. 

Modern   philosophy   is  permeated   with  the  Pessimism 
flavour  of  pessimism, — the  bitter  tincture  drawn 
from  the  twisted,  tangled  roots  of   sorrowful 
perversity  which  underlie  the  life  of  man. 

Modern  literature    is   haunted  by  the   per-    ^ 
sistent  spectre  of  evil,  which  "will  not  down." 

1  The  Nineteenth  Century,  Feb.,  1889.    "Agnosticism." 
c 


18  The  Sin  of  the   World 

A  novel  by  Zola,  or  Turgenieff,  or  Thomas 
Hardy,  is  little  more  than  a  commentary  on 
Jeremiah's  text,  "The  heart  is  deceitful  above 
all  things,  and  desperately  wicked."1 

Gloomy  as  such  a  view  of  life  is,  unmitigated 
by  any  real  explanation  of  its  mysterious  ail- 
ment, unillumined  by  any  hope  of  its  cure, 
there  is  still  something  wholesome  and  medici- 
nal in  it.  It  is  better  to  know  the  saddest 
truth  than  to  be  blinded  by  the  merriest  lie. 
The  sober,  stern-browed  pessimism  which  looks 
the  darkness  in  the  face  is  sounder  and  more 
heroic  than  the  frivolous,  fat-witted  optimism 
which  turns  its  back,  and  shuts  its  eyes,  and 
laughs. 

The  folly  of       Man,  indeed,  is  framed  to  live  and  rise  by 
ignoring       hope.     But  a  hope  which  begins  by  denying  the 

BVil* 

facts  is  a  false  hope  whose  path  leads  upward  — 
a  few  steps — to  the  edge  of  a  precipice  of  deeper 
despair. 

The  Bridge-Builders  in  Rudyard  Kipling's 
story  would  have  been  fools  if  they  had  tried 
to  accomplish  their  work  by  ignoring  the  steady 
downward  thrust  of  gravitation,  or  shutting 
their  eyes  to  the  destructive  rage  of  the  Ganges- 
flood. 

No  less  foolish  is  the  man  who  tries  to  build 
1  Jer.  xvii.  9. 


The  Sin  of  the   World  19 

a  life,  or  a  theory  of  life,  in  forgetfulness  of  the 
steady  downward  thrust  of  human  nature,  or  in 
denial  of  the  reality  and  universality  of  the  evil 
that  is  in  the  world. 

Hidden  it  may  be ;  dormant  it  may  be ;  un- 
realized it  may  be  in  the  fulness  of  its  possi- 
bilities and  powers.  The  river  sleeps  in  the 
smoothness  of  its  flow.  The  force  that  draws 
all  foreheads  downward  to  the  dust  is  checked 
and  countervailed  by  other  forces.  But  evil  is 
always  there,  a  potency  of  disaster  and  destruc- 
tion. All  the  ills  that  have  been  wrought  in 
the  world  come  from  that  secret  source.  In 
form  they  are  manifold.  In  origin  and  essence 
they  are  one. 


20  The  Sin  of  the  World 

II 

The   Unanswerable  Question 

The  genesis        How  came  evil  into  being  ? 

This  is  the  question  which  man  has  always 
asked,  and  to  which  he  has  never  found  a  per- 
fect answer. 

He  cannot  help  asking  it,  because  curiosity, 
in  the  nobler  sense  of  the  word,  is  the  main- 
spring of  his  mind.  When  man  ceases  to 
question  he  ceases  to  think. 

He  cannot  find  the  perfect  answer,  because  his 
reason  is  limited  and  conditioned,  and  because 
his  intellectual  power  itself  has  developed  under 
the  shadow,  and  within  the  sphere,  of  the  very 
malign  presence  which  he  seeks  to  account  for. 

A  spirit  whose  life  was  beyond  the  influence 
of  evil  might  be  able  to  understand  and  solve 
the  problem  of  its  origin.  But  even  so,  it 
would  hardly  be  possible  for  such  a  spirit  to 
communicate  this  knowledge  to  other  spirits 
who  were  born  and  lived  within  the  domain 
of  evil. 

And  yet,  that  man  should  ask  this  question, 
and  continue  to  ask  it  after  thousands  of  years 
of  baffled  thought  and  disappointed  search,  is 
in  itself  a  hopeful  and  illuminating  fact.  It 


The  Sin  of  the  World  21 

is  a  question  which  implies  a  faith  not  to  be   Theqms- 
eradicated,  a  courage  not  to  be  conquered.     It  tion  °Sh° 
speaks  of  a  conviction  that  evil  is  not  eternal, 
but  temporal ;  not  sovereign,  but  subordinate ; 
not  native  to  the  universe,  but  a  foreigner  and 
an  intruder.     It  testifies  to  man's  knowledge 
that  evil  is  not  the  whole,  but  a  part ;  not  the 
straight  line,  but  the  deflection;  not  a  neces- 
sary element  in  the  perfect  harmony  of  being, 
but  a  false  note  which  breaks  the  chord. 

If  man  should  ask,  "How  came  good  into 
being  ?  "  he  would  be  in  the  region  of  despair. 
While  he  continues  to  ask,  "How  came  evil 
into  being  ?  "  he  is  in  the  region  of  hope. 

All  the  answers  to  this  question  which  have 
been  attempted,  may  be  classified  under  three 
forms.  The  first  amounts  to  a  denial  of  the  A 
existence  of  evil.  The  second  destroys  the  re- 
ality of  the  distinction  between  evil  and  good. 
The  third  confesses  that  the  primal  origin  of 
evil  is  a  mystery,  and  bids  us  rest  content  with 
a  knowledge  of  its  reality  and  its  mode  of  mani- 
festation in  the  world. 

All  theories  which  are  based  upon  the  idea  of  Is  evil 
the  essential  nothingness  of  evil,  amount  to  a  r> 
practical  denial  of   its   existence.      Traces    of 
such  theories  may  be  found  even  in  Christian 


22  The  Sin  of  the   World 

writers.  A  theologian  as  orthodox  as  Thomas 
Aquinas  has  said,  "God  created  everything 
that  exists;  but  sin  is  nothing;  so  God  was  not 
the  author  of  it."  In  Robert  Browning's  poem 
of  Abt  Vogler,  the  idea,  is  put  into  a  single 
verse. 

"  The  evil  is  naught,  is  null,  is  silence  implying  sound." 

Darkness  is  but  the  absence  of  light.  Evil  is 
but  the  negation  of  good. 

The  rock  upon  which  all  these  negative 
theories  go  to  pieces  is  the  practical  convic- 
tion that  evil  is  just  as  real  to  us  in  our  ex- 
perience, just  as  solid,  just  as  operative,  as 
good  is.  The  desire  which  seeks  a  wrong 
pleasure  is  no  less  vivid  than  that  which 
seeks  a  right  pleasure.  The  will  which  de- 
termines a  wicked  action  is  just  as  strong 
as  that  which  determines  a  righteous  action. 
The  end  sought  is  no  more  negative  in  one 
case  than  it  is  in  the  other.  If  evil  is  a 
nothing,  it  is  a  strangely  active,  positive,  and 
potent  nothing,  with  all  the  qualities  of  a 
something.  The  theories  which  attempt  to 
account  for  its  origin  by  tracing  it  to  a  mere 
negation  or  absence  of  good,  raise  a  harder 
question  than  that  which  they  attempt  to 
answer.  Instead  of  asking  how  evil  came 


The  Sin  of  the   World  23 

into  being,  we  must  ask,  How  did  evil,  which 
is  a  mere  nothing,  come  to  have  the  reality, 
the  life,  and  the  power  of  a  something? 

All  theories  which  are  based  upon  the  idea  of  is  evil 
the  necessity  of  evil  lead  to  a  practical  denial  necessaryf 
of  the  distinction  between  evil  and  good.  For 
if  the  necessity  be  purely  natural,  that  is  to 
say  materialistic,  then  there  is  no  possible 
ground  for  making  such  a  distinction.  The 
inexplicable  constitution  of  the  original  atoms 
of  the  universe  has  produced  mother's  love  and 
murderer's  hate  in  precisely  the  same  way,  and 
the  one  is  as  good,  or  as  evil,  as  the  other. 
But  if  the  necessity  be  ordained  by  any  kind  of 
a  Divine  Being,  then  all  its  results  must  be 
according  to  His  will  and  must  serve  His  pur- 
pose. Any  essential  difference  between  the 
evil  and  the  good  becomes  unimaginable.  All 
that  is  left  is  a  formal  difference,  in  which  evil 
is  good  in  disguise,  a  necessary  but  unrecognized 
element  in  the  development  of  the  world.  We 
must  accept  the  statement  of  Pope's  Essay  on 
Man: 

"  All  nature  is  but  art,  unknown  to  thee ; 
All  chance,  direction  which  thou  canst  not  see ; 
All  discord,  harmony  not  understood ; 
All  partial  evil,  universal  good ; 


24  .  The  Sin  of  the   World 

And  spite  of  pride,  in  erring  reason's  spite, 
One  truth  is  clear,  Whatever  is,  is  right." 

The  "ought  The  rock  upon  which  these  theories  of  the 
necessity  of  evil  go  to  pieces  is  the  practical 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  evil,  which  comes 
to  us  through  the  same  moral  sense  which 
makes  us  aware  of  its  existence.  There  is  ab- 
solutely no  variation  in  the  testimony  of  human 
consciousness  on  this  point.  Evil  is  recognized 
not  merely  as  something  which  is,  but  also  as 
something  which  "  ought  not  to  be."  This  is  the 
mark  by  which  we  know  it.  If  from  this  mark 
we  set  out  to  trace  its  origin  to  a  divine  neces- 
sity which  has  ordained  it  and  called  it  into 
being  to  serve  a  good  purpose,  then  we  must 
admit  that  our  original  mark  of  evil  is  an  illu- 
sion, a  false  label.  It  is  not  "  that  which  ought 
not  to  be."  It  is  "that  which  ought  to  be." 
The  whole  problem  of  the  origin  of  evil  dis- 
solves into  an  absurdity.  We  are  left  to  face 
a  still  harder  question.  How  did  our  moral 
consciousness,  with  such  an  error  at  the  very 
heart  of  it,  come  into  being  ?  Is  it  a  mistake  ? 
Or  is  it  a  lie  ?  Or  is  it  perhaps  a  divinely  im- 
posed delusion  ? 1 

1  Schleiermacher  and  Kitschl,  among  theologians,  present 
a  theory  of  the  sense  of  guilt  as  a  purely  subjective  feeling, 


The  Sin  of  the   World  25 

But  if  our  common  sense  turns  away  from   The  true 
these  theories  of  evil  as  originating  in  nothing-  ftne  °f 

inquiry. 

ness,  or  in  necessity,  in  what  direction  shall  we 
look  for  an  answer  to  the  question  of  how  it 
came  into  being?  There  is  only  one  line  left 
open ;  and  that  is  the  line  of  the  facts  as  they 
lie  before  us  in  the  world  of  experience.  This 
is  the  line  that  we  must  take.  We  must  hold 
to  it  firmly.  We  must  follow  it  as  far  as  we 
can ;  and  when  we  can  follow  it  no  farther  we 
must  stop,  sure  that  to  turn  aside  from  that 
line  is  to  fall  into  falsehood. 

What,  then,  are  the  facts  of  evil  recognized  Three  facts 
by  the  moral  sense  of  mankind?  First  of  all,  °** 
that  it  is  "  that  which  ought  not  to  be."  Then, 
that  it  actually  is.  Then,  that  it  manifests 
itself  in  our  own  experience  in  connection  with 
voluntary  acts,  —  acts  of  choice,  or  acts  of  com- 
pliance, —  contrary  to  "  that  which  ought  to  be." 
But  "  that  which  ought  to  be,"  must  be  the  will 
of  God.  Therefore  "  that  which  ought  not  to 
be,"  can  only  make  itself  known  in  the  world 
through  the  will  of  a  creature  capable  of  going 
contrary  to  God.  The  possibility  of  evil  de- 
pends upon  the  liberty  of  the  created  will. 
Liberty,  then,  which  means  the  power  of  con- 

which  makes  it  amount,  in  effect,  to  a  result  of  ignorance, 
or  an  illusion  ordained  by  God  for  a  good  end. 


26 


The  Sin  of  the   World 


The  dark- 
ness beyond 
the  door. 


Evil  is 
choice 
abused. 


trary  choice,  must  be  the  door  through  which 
evil  entered  the  world.1 

But  what  lies  behind  that  door  ?  From  what 
secret  region  does  the  evil  that  passes  through 
it  draw  its  birth  and  its  power  ?  Why  does  it 
enter  in  ?  Why  does  God  permit  it  ?  Here 
we  stand  face  to  face  with  the  impenetrable 
mystery. 

Certainly  God  as  creator  must  have  bestowed 
the  gift  of  liberty  with  a  good  purpose.  He 
must  have  intended  man  to  choose  the  good  in 
order  to  attain  real  and  permanent  freedom  ; 
that  is,  the  power  of  self-realization  in  harmony 
with  the  ideal  of  his  nature.  But  when  evil 
comes  in  through  liberty,  the  purpose  of  liberty 
is  violated,  the  very  end  of  its  being  is  frus- 
trated. The  will,  choosing  evil,  comes  into 
subjection  to  it,  and  cannot  realize  itself  in 
a  lasting  freedom  of  concord  with  good. 

Evil,  then,  as  it  manifests  itself  in  the  world, 
is  a  purposeless,  aimless  thing.  It  is  an  abuse 
of  the  power  of  choice.  It  is  caprice.  It  is 
violence  to  reason.  We  can  give  no  rational 
explanation  of  its  origin,  because  its  origin 
appears  irrational.  It  is  incomprehensible. 
There  is  a  madness  about  it  which  confuses 
the  mind.  The  Greeks  took  refuge  from  it 

1  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  ch.  vi.,  "Liberty." 


The  Sin  of  the   World  27 

in  their  myth  of  Ate,  "  the  eldest  daughter  of 
Zeus,  the  power  of  bane,  who  blindeth  all." 
But  this  was  only  a  shift  of  desperate  igno- 
rance to  get  rid  of  the  difficulty  by  transferring 
it  from  the  human  to  the  divine. 

A   wiser,    humbler,   more    reverent    thought  It  does  not 

holds  fast  to  the  conviction  that  wherever  the  c°mefrom 

(jfod. 

madness  of  evil  comes  from,  it  does  not  come 
from  God.  Its  origin  is  beyond  our  ken.  "Evil 
is  the  inscrutable  mystery  of  the  world ;  it  ever 
remains,  in  its  inmost  depths,  impenetrable 
darkness."  1  It  is  not  to  be  comprehended  in 
its  cause.  It  is  to  be  known  in  its  effects,  which 
are  symptoms  of  its  nature. 

This  is  the  point  to  which  our  line  leads  us,  its  birth- 
said  here  it  leaves  us.  To  go  farther  is  to 
abandon  fact  for  fancy.  Christianity  itself  does 
not  profess  to  give  us  light  beyond  this  point. 
It  presents  no  doctrine  of  the  origin  of  evil. 
It  tells  us  only  how  it  came  into  the  world,  and 
what  it  means  in  the  life  of  man.  Where  it 
came  from  is  unrevealed. 

There  are  two  places  in  the  Bible  where  the  Adam 
entrance  of   evil  and  the  fall  of   man  are  de- 
scribed  —  and  they  both  teach  the  same  lesson. 
Christ's  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  2  is  just  as 

1  M  tiller,  On  the  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  II.,  p.  174. 

2  Luke  xv. 


28  The  Sin  of  the   World 

true,  just  as  significant,  as  the  story  of  Adam's 
lost  Paradise.1  In  both  stories  the  birthplace  of 
the  evil  is  hidden.  The  serpent  that  tempted 
Eve,  and  the  far  country  that  allured  the  Prodi- 
gal, are  symbols  of  a  mystery.  In  both  stories 
the  entrance  of  the  evil  is  through  self-will  — 
blind,  perverse,  ruinous,  but  free,  and  therefore 
responsible.  In  both  stories  the  nature  of  the 
evil  is  rebellion,  self -in  jury,  separation  from 
God.2  In  both  stories  the  result  of  the  evil  in 
man's  heart  is  the  sense  of  sin. 

Adam's  story  stops  there ;  but  the  Prodigal's 
story  goes  on  to  salvation. 

1  Gen.  iii. 

2  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  pp.  266  ff. 


The  Sin  of  the  World  29 

m 

The  Sense  of  Sin 

The  sense  of  sin  is  something  deeper  than  the  Sin  is  an 
consciousness  of  evil.1     Evil  is  a  broad,  vague  ™0^r  ^ 
word.     It  covers  all  that  ought  not  to  be,  but  it 
does  not  make  clear  the  nature  of  the  "  ought 
not."     It  is  a  general  description  of  that  which 
prevents   perfection,   destroys  happiness,   pro- 
duces discord  and  misery. 

Sin  is  a  precise,  sharp  word.  It  translates 
the  idea  of  evil  from  the  language  of  philosophy 
into  the  language  of  religion.  It  defines  the 
nature  of  the  "ought  not"  as  resting  on  a 
divine  law.  It  recognizes  the  presence  and 
the  guilt  of  a  contrary  will  in  disobedience  to 
that  law.  It  interprets  the  nature  and  the 
consequence  of  evil  in  the  light  that  comes 
from  God.  . 

The  consciousness  of  evil  is  universal.     There   The  unrest 
is  a  feeling  of  conflict,  of  disorder,  of  moral  °fmankind- 
perturbation  and   unrest,  diffused  through  all 
humanity.     This  is  the  great  mark  of  division 
between  the  life  of  man  and  the  life  of  nature. 
Emerson  has  described  it  in  his  poem  of  The 

1  Fairbairn,  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology, 
p.  462. 


30  The  Sin  of  the   World 

Sphinx.  Nature  is  harmonious,  joyful,  uncon, 
scious  of  strife  between  the  real  and  the 
ideal. 

"  But  man  crouches  and  blushes, 

Absconds  and  conceals ; 
He  creepeth  and  peepeth, 

He  palters  and  steals ; 
Infirm,  melancholy, 

Jealous  glancing  around, 
An  oaf,  an  accomplice, 

He  poisons  the  ground. 

"  Out  spoke  the  great  mother, 

Beholding  his  fear ;  — 
At  the  sound  of  her  accents 

Cold  shuddered  the  sphere ; 
*  Who  has  drugged  my  boy's  cup  ? 

Who  has  mixed  my  boy's  bread  ? 
Who,  with  sadness  and  madness, 

Has  turned  my  child's  head  ? ' " 

Conscience.  This  mysterious  unrest,  this  vague  trouble, 
this  nameless,  haunting  distress,  is  an  utter- 
ance of  man's  consciousness  that  he  belongs 
to  another  world  from  that  which  is  ruled 
by  mere  necessity.  It  is  an  instinctive  con- 
fession that  beyond  the  power  of  control,  to 
which  all  physical  life  is  subject,  he  feels  a 
power  of  command,  to  which  his  spiritual  life 
ought  to  be  subject.  This  power  of  command 
makes  itself  known  to  him  through  conscience, 
which  is  the  power  of  perceiving  the  differ- 


The  Sin  of  the   World  31 

ence    between  the   "  ought    to    be "   and    the 
"ought  not  to  be." 

"Whom  do  you  count  the  worst  man  upon 
earth  ? "  says  Robert  Browning  in  Christmas 
Eve. 

"  Be  sure  that  he  knows,  in  his  conscience,  more 
Of  what  right  is,  than  arrives  at  birth 
In  the  best  man's  acts  that  we  bow  before : 
This  last  knows  better  —  true,  but  my  fact  is, 
'Tis  one  thing  to  know,  and  another  to  practise." 

This  contrast  between  knowledge  and  prac- 
tice is  the  root  of  the  consciousness  of  evil, 
whose  symptoms  are  unrest,  shame,  and  fear. 

"  Thus  conscience  doth  make  cowards  of  us  all." 

It  is  a  feeling  of  resistance  to  a  moral  pres- 
sure, of  disobedience  to  a  commanding  power, 
of  discord  with  a  dim  ideal.  But  it  is  also  a 
sense  of  compliance  with  an  inward  impulse,  of 
obedience  to  a  native  desire,  of  agreement  with 
a  secret  passion. 

It  is  not  altogether  dark.     It  could  not  exist  The  light 
in  a  world  where  there  was  nothing  but  evil. 
In  a  universe  wholly  material  there  could  be 
no  materialism.     In  a  race  utterly  and  totally 
evil  there  could  be  no  consciousness  of  evil. 

Neither  could  it  exist  in  a  world  where  sepa- 
rate evils  stood  alone  and  had  no  common 


32  The  Sin  of  the   World 

ground  in  human  nature.  Each  misdeed  would 
then  be  a  miracle.  It  would  be  a  rootless,  un- 
recognizable, nameless  thing.  Conscience  per- 
ceives evil  not  only  in  its  individuality,  but 
also  in  its  solidarity.  When  a  man  does  wrong 
he  feels  that  he  is  a  partner  in  a  great  con- 
spiracy, a  sharer,  by  choice  or  by  compliance, 
in  a  widespread  rebellion. 

"  There  is  in  man,"  wrote  Frederic  Amiel  in 
his  diary,  "an  instinct  of  revolt,  an  enemy  of 
all  law,  a  rebel  which  will  stoop  to  no  yoke,  not 
even  that  of  reason,  duty,  and  wisdom.  This 
element  in  us  is  the  root  of  all  sin — das  radi- 
cale  Bose  of  Kant."1 

But  this  feeling  of  radical  evil  and  of  its 
presence  and  potency  in  every  misdeed,  needs 
more  light  to  make  its  meaning  clear.  Evil  is 
known  as  sin  only  when  good  is  known  as  the 
will  and  command  and  ideal  of  a  personal  and 
holy  God. 

This  is  what  St.  Paul  teaches.  Revelation 
is  given  to  make  clear  the  nature  of  the  gulf 
between  man  as  he  is  and  man  as  he  ought 
to  be.  Evil  is  not  a  step  in  a  progress  toward 
the  ideal.  It  is  a  chasm  which  cuts  us  off 
from  the  ideal.  The  reason  why  it  cuts  us  off 
is  because  it  is  contrary  to  God's  will,  through 

i  Amiel's  Journal,  23d  Feb.,  1870,  Vol.  II.,  p.  55. 


The  Sin  of  the   World  33 

which  alone  the  ideal  can  be  realized.  The 
moral  law  reveals  that  will  to  us  as  positive, 
personal,  righteous,  and  immutable.  The  law 
enters  that  the  offence  may  abound,  for  "by 
the  law  is  the  knowledge  of  sin."1 

The  sense  of  sin,  therefore,  is  a  step  beyond 
the  consciousness  of  evil.  And  it  is  a  step 
toward  light. 

It  is  the  interpretation  of  evil  as  an  offence  sin  against 
against  God,  a  disobedience  to  God,  a  separa-  God- 
tion  from  God.  It  comes  into  being  only  with 
Theism,  the  faith  in  a  holy,  wise,  and  right- 
eous Spirit  as  creator  of  the  world.  It  is  not 
until  this  light  breaks  upon  the  soul  that 
Amiel's  words  become  true  :  "All  men  long 
to  recover  a  lost  harmony  with  the  great  order 
of  things,  and  to  feel  themselves  approved  and 
blessed  by  the  author  of  the  Universe.  All 
know  what  suffering  is,  and  long  for  happiness. 
All  know  what  sin  is,  and  feel  the  need  of 
pardon." 

Religion  must  begin,  then,  —  even  if  we  hold 
that  its  ultimate  aim  is  the  deliverance  of  men 
from  evil,  —  religion  must  begin  not  with  a 
doctrine  of  evil,  but  with  a  doctrine  of  God.2 

Its  keynote  must  be  the  first  article  of  the 

1  Kom.  iii.  20  ;  v.  20. 

2  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  Preface  to  6th  ed. 

D 


34  The  Sin  of  the   World 

creed,  "  I  believe  in  God,  the  Father  Almighty, 
maker  of  heaven  and  earth."  When  He  is 
hidden,  forgotten,  denied,  the  gospel  for  an  age 
of  doubt  must  prepare  the  way  for  the  gospel 
for  a  world  of  sin.  Over  the  vague  unrest,  the 
inarticulate  shame,  the  uncomprehended  fear, 
of  an  evil  world,  the  light  of  God's  love  and 
God's  law  must  be  poured.  Thus  only  can  the 
evil  doer  find  his  way  to  that  place  of  peni- 
tence, where  he  cries,  "Against  thee,  thee 
only,  have  I  sinned,  and  done  this  evil  in  thy 
sight."1 

The  light  The  sense  of  sin,  therefore,  is  not  by  any 

means  a  hopeless  thing.  It  is  an  evidence  of 
life,  in  its  very  pain ;  of  enlightenment,  in  its 
very  shame ;  of  nearness  to  God,  in  its  very 
humiliation  before  Him. 

There  is  a  passage  in  a  recent  story  of  human 
life  that  puts  the  truth  very  simply  and  beauti- 
fully.2 A  woman  that  was  a  sinner  has  come 
to  a  minister  of  Christ  to  confess  her  sin.  The 
old  man  speaks  to  her  as  she  kneels  at  his  feet, 
weeping. 

"  You  have  sinned,  and  suffered  for  your  sin. 
You  have  asked  your  Heavenly  Father  to  for- 
give you,  and  He  has  forgiven  you.  But  still 

1  Psalm  li.  4. 

2  Margaret  Deland,  Old  Chester  Tales,  p.  84. 


The  Sin  of  the   World  35 

you  suffer.  Woman,  be  thankful  that  you  can 
suffer.  The  worst  trouble  in  the  world  is  the 
trouble  that  does  not  know  God,  and  so  does 
not  suffer.  Without  such  knowledge  there  is 
no  suffering.  The  sense  of  sin  in  the  soul  is  the 
apprehension  of  Almighty  God." 


36  The  Sin  of  the   World 

rv 

The  Hopeful  Fear 

Sin  a  Sin  is  not  a  thing  to  be  defined.     It  is  a 

mystery.        thing  to  be  felk     Everv  attempt  at  a  definition 

conies  short  of  the  reality.  If  it  is  insisted 
upon  as  the  full  truth,  it  becomes  a  guide  to 
error.  Every  genuine  feeling  of  sin  throws 
some  light  upon  the  reality  and  helps  us  to 
perceive  that  which  we  can  never  explain. 

One  of  the  inexplicable  elements  of  sin  is  the 
connection  between  its  root  in  the  race  and  its 
fruits  in  the  individual.  We  cannot  explain 
how  it  is  that  each  man  should  feel  himself 
free  enough  to  be  fully  responsible  for  his  own 
evil  thoughts  and  feelings  and  actions,  and  yet 
conscious  at  the  same  time  that  they  are  joined 
to  a  common  ground  of  evil  in  human  nature. 
Stranger  still  is  the  fact  that  this  propensity 
to  evil  is  felt  to  be  not  an  excuse  but  an  aggra- 
vation. The  man  who  injures  his  brother  in 
a  fit  of  passion,  takes  no  comfort  in  the  remem- 
brance of  his  anger.  The  anger  itself  is  part 
of  his  condemnation.  Who  ever  excused  a  foul 
deed,  to  his  own  conscience,  with  the  saying 
that  he  had  a  foul  nature  ?  Sin  is  not  only  an 
act :  it  is  a  condition,  a  state ;  and  separate 


The  Sin  of  the  World  37 

sins  are  not  better,  they  are  worse,  because 
they  spring  from  a  common  root.  "It  is  of 
sin,"  says  Boetius,  "that  we  do  not  love  that 
which  is  best." 

Christ  taught  the  truth  of  original  sin.  He  Original 
did  not  explain  it,  but  He  declared  it  when  He  sm' 
said,  "  Out  of  the  heart  proceed  evil  thoughts, 
murders,  adulteries,  fornications,  thefts,  false 
witness,  blasphemies." 1  Side  by  side  with  this 
truth  He  proclaimed  the  guilt  of  actual  sin 
when  He  said,  "  Whosoever  looketh  on  a  woman 
to  lust  after  her  hath  committed  adultery  with 
her  already  in  his  heart."  2  He  taught  also  that 
all  men  need  to  be  delivered  from  both  original 
and  actual  sin  when  He  said,  "  Ye  must  be  born 
again,"  3  and  "  Except  ye  repent  ye  shall  all  like- 
wise perish."4  But  when  His  disciples  pressed 
Him  to  explain  this  mystery  of  the  connection 
between  the  root  and  the  fruit  of  evil,  with 
their  question,  "  Lord,  who  did  sin,  this  man  or 
his  parents,  that  he  was  born  blind  ?  "  Christ 
refused  to  answer  them.  He  said,  "  Neither  did 
this  man  sin  nor  his  parents  "  (that  is,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  point  of  their  question),  "but  that  the 
works  of  God  might  be  made  manifest  in  him."  6 

Original  sin  makes  originality  in  sins  impos- 

1  Matt.  xv.  19.  2  Matt.  v.  28. 

»  John  iii.  7.  *  Luke  xiii.  3.  5  John  ix.  2,  3. 


38  The  Sin  of  the   World 

sible.  There  is  a  fatal  resemblance  and  rela- 
tionship in  all  the  evils  that  are  done  under 
the  sun,  from  the  days  before  the  flood  even 
until  now. 

And  yet  every  sin  originates  in  the  heart  that 
commits  it.  Each  individual  will  that  consents 
to  evil  chooses  for  itself.  The  ground  of  this 
choice  is  hidden  in  darkness.  It  may  lie  in  a 
region  beyond  the  sphere  of  time  and  space,  an 
antenatal  state.1 


Every  sin  a        But  the  operation  of  this  choice  is  manifest 

fall  of  man.    ..,,.",,«,  .      .         -  ,,      . 

in  the  light.     Every  sin  is  a  fall  of  man. 

To  be  really  conscious  of  a  single  sin  is  to 
feel  its  secret  connections  and  infinite  possibili- 
ties. It  is  to  catch  sight  of  the  bottomless 
gulf  and  have  a  sense  of  the  immeasurable 
peril  of  walking  beside  it  with  unguarded 
feet. 

In  Goethe's  Confessions  of  a  Beautiful 
Soul  there  is  a  singular  and  searching  pas- 
sage which  goes  very  deep  into  human  experi- 
ence. 

"  For  more  than  a  year,"  —  so  runs  the  con- 
fession, —  "I  was  forced  to  feel  that  if  an  un- 
seen Hand  had  not  protected  me,  I  might  have 
become  a  Girard,  a  Cartouche,  a  Damiens,  or 

1  Coleridge,  Aids  to  Reflection,  pp.  268  ff.  ;  Miiller,  On  the 
Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  II.,  pp.  357  ff. 


The  Sin  of  the   World  39 

almost  any  moral  monster  that  one  can  name. 
I  felt  the  predisposition  to  it  in  my  heart. 
God,  what  a  discovery  !  "  1 

John  Bunyan's  exclamation,  when  he  looked 
from  his  window  at  a  condemned  malefactor 
going  to  execution,  —  "  There  goes  John  Bun- 
yan,  but  for  the  grace  of  God,"  —  has  found  an 
echo  in  many  a  heart.  But  this  echo  is  not  a 
defence ;  it  is  a  confession. 

The  sense  of  sin  covers  character  as  well  as  Sinful 
deeds.  It  clings  not  only  to  what  we  have  character- 
done,  but  also  to  what  we  are  prone  to  do. 
It  was  in  this  region  below  the  surface  that 
Jesus  touched  and  exposed  it,  with  His  search- 
ing tenderness,  His  holy  insight,  His  relentless 
love.  Not  only  His  word,  piercing  like  an 
arrow  of  light  to  the  roots  of  evil  in  pride 
and  selfishness  and  lust  and  greed  and  hypoc- 
risy, but  also  His  life,  in  its  stainless  purity 
and  flawless  truth,  was  an  infallible  detective 
of  the  furtive  evil  seeking  to  hide  itself,  like 
Adam  and  Eve  in  the  story  of  Eden,  among 
the  trees  of  the  garden.  It  was  for  this  rea- 
son that  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  hated  Him, 
because  He  made  them  hate  themselves.  It 
was  for  this  reason  that  Peter  feared  to  be 
with  Him,  and  cried,  "  Depart  from  me,  for 

i  Wilhelm  Meister's  Lehrjahre,  Part  II.,  p.  112. 


40  The  Sin  of  the    World 

I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord."1  It  was  for  this 
reason  that  the  woman, of  the  city  streets  drew 
close  to  Him,  and  bathed  His  feet  with  her 
tears,  because  she  knew  that  He  knew  that  she 
was  a  sinner.2 

There  are  four  elements  in  a  true  sense  of 
sin :  shame,  pain,  fear,  and  hope. 

The  shame         The  shame  comes  from  its  ugliness,  its  defile- 
tn  sin.          merit,  its  marring  and  mocking  of   those   ele- 
ments in  us  which  we  feel  belong  to  the  divine 
image  and  our  better  nature.     No  man  is  born 
without  an  ideal. 

"  Take  all  in  a  word :  the  truth  in  God's  breast, 
Lies  trace  for  trace  upon  ours  impressed : 
Though  He  is  so  bright,  and  we  so  dim, 
We  are  made  in  His  image  to  witness  Him."  8 

The  failure  to  be  true  to  this  ideal,  the  be- 
fouling and  breaking  of  this  image,  is  the 
shame  of  sin. 

The  pain  in  The  pain  comes  from  its  enslaving  and  im- 
prisoning power.  Man  was  made  for  liberty. 
But  sin  is  bondage  to  evil.  "Whoso  com- 
mitteth  sin  is  the  servant  of  sin."4  The  con- 
flict within  our  members,  the  law  of  the  flesh 

1  Luke  v.  8.  8  Browning,  Christmas  Eve,  xvii. 

2  Luke  vii.  38.        4  John  viii.  34. 


The  Sin  of  the   World  41 

warring  against  the  law  of  the  spirit,  the  weight 
of  the  chains  of  evil  habit,  the  tyranny  of 
sensual  lusts  and  passions,  —  these  make  the 
misery  of  human  life.  Stevenson's  parable  of 
Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  is  a  commentary 
on  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans. 

"  The  gods  are  just,  and  of  our  pleasant  vices 
Make  instruments  to  plague  us." 

"  Crime  and  punishment,"  says  Emerson, 
"  grow  out  of  one  stem.  Punishment  is  a 
fruit  that,  unsuspected,  ripens  within  the  flower 
that  concealed  it." 

The  fear  comes  from  the  sense  of  disobedi-  The  fear  in 
ence  to  a  high,  mysterious,  inexorable  com-  sin' 
mand.  It  is  not  possible  to  feel  sin  without 
fear,  except  by  denying  the  existence  of  all 
moral  law.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  con- 
sciousness of  evil  has  always  carried  with  it 
in  all  human  experience  a  feeling  of  secret 
apprehension,  a  troubled  expectation  and  dread 
of  punishment.  Fear  is  related  to  guilt  as 
personality  is  related  to  law.  The  reality  of 
the  one  relation  carries  with  it  the  reality  of 
the  other.  Here  we  come  face  to  face  with  a 
crucial  question  in  religion. 

Is  there  anything  objective  and  actual  which 


42 


Tlw  Sin  of  the  World 


The  warn- 
ing of  con- 


The  broken 
law. 


corresponds  to  this  human  element  of  fear  in  the 
sense  of  sin  ?  Is  there  anything  for  sinful  man 
to  be  afraid  of  ? 

Certainly  there  must  be,  unless  the  whole 
testimony  of  our  moral  nature  is  an  illusion. 
The  condemnation  of  sin  rests  not  merely  upon 
the  feeling  that  sin  is  self-injury,  self-mutila- 
tion, but  upon  the  deeper  sense  that  it  is  an 
offence  against  a  law  outside  of  us,  and  above 
us,  and  justly  sovereign  over  us.1  Such  a 
law  must  have  within  itself  the  right,  the 
power,  the  inexorable  necessity  of  punishment. 
Resting  upon  the  will,  and  expressing  the  char- 
acter of  a  righteous  God,  the  ruler  of  the  uni- 
verse, it  implies  in  Him  a  holy  indignation 
against  all  that  breaks  and  dishonours  it. 

"For  consider,"  says  one  of  the  greatest 
preachers  whose  voice  has  been  heard  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  "sin  violates  and  defies 
the  Moral  Law  of  God.  And  what  is  God's 
Moral  Law  ?  Is  it  a  law  which,  like  the  laws 
of  nature,  as  we  call  them,  might  conceivably 
have  been  other  than  it  is?  Certainly  not. 
We  can  conceive  much  in  nature  being  very 
different  from  what  it  is  —  suns  and  stars  mov- 
ing in  smaller  cycles;  men  and  animals  in 
different  shapes;  the  chemistry,  the  geology, 
1  Lux  M".ndi,  p.  277. 


The   World  of  Sin  43 

the  governing  rules  of  the  material  universe, 
quite  unlike  what  they  actually  are.  God's 
liberty  in  creating  physical  beings  was  in  no 
way  limited  by  His  own  laws,  whether  of  force 
or  of  matter.  But  can  we,  if  we  believe  in  a 
Moral  God,  conceive  Him  saying,  '  Thou  mayest 
lie,'  'Thou  mayest  do  murder'?  .  .  .  The 
Moral  Law  is  not  a  code  which  He  might  have 
made  other  than  it  is ;  it  is  His  own  Moral 
Nature,  thrown  into  a  shape  which  makes  it 
intelligible  and  applicable  to  us  His  creatures ; 
and  therefore  in  violating  it  we  are  opposing, 
not  something  which  He  has  made,  but  might 
have  made  otherwise,  like  the  laws  of  nature, — 
but  Himself.  Sin,  if  it  could,  would  destroy 
God."  i 

The  penalty  of  sin  under  moral  law  is  not  The  penalty. 
less  certain,  but  more  certain,  than  the  penalty 
of  disobedience  to  natural  law.  The  whole- 
some fear  which  makes  a  burnt  child  dread  the 
fire  is  no  more  trustworthy  than  the  salutary 
fear  which  makes  a  sinful  man  dread  the  divine 
indignation.  Both  are  premonitions  of  an 
actual  peril,  safeguards  against  a  real  danger. 
But  the  latter,  if  Christ  knew  the  truth,  is  far 
more  needful,  far  more  terrible.  For  he  said  : 
"  Be  not  afraid  of  them  that  kill  the  body,  and 

1  Henry  Parry  Liddon,  Passiontide  Sermons,  p.  296. 


44  The  Sin  of  the   World 

after  that  have  no  more  than  they  can  do. 
But  I  will  forewarn  you  whom  ye  shall  fear  : 
Fear  him,  which  after  he  hath  killed,  hath 
power  to  cast  into  hell ;  yea,  I  say  unto  you, 
fear  him."1  And  this  He  said,  not  unto  His 
enemies  to  terrify  them,  but  unto  His  friends 
to  warn  and  save  them. 

The  wrath  The  fear  that  lurks  in  sin  is  not  an  illusion. 
It  is  an  admonition.  It  corresponds  to  some- 
thing real  outside  of  us.  And  that  something 
is  the  reality  which  religion  calls  "the  wrath 
of  God." 

It  is  inconceivable  that  this  holy  wrath  should 
be  perfectly  comprehended  or  explained  by  us. 
It  is  equally  inconceivable  that  it  should  be 
doubted  or  denied.  A  righteous  judge  incapa- 
ble of  indignation  against  crime  would  be  unfit 
to  sit  in  the  seat  of  justice.  A  holy  God  in- 
capable of  wrath  against  sin  would  be  disquali- 
fied to  rule  the  world. 

There  must  be  a  moral  necessity  in  God  which 
calls  for  the  condemnation  of  evil  as  sin.  This 
necessity  comes  from  every  side  of  His  nature, 
—  from  His  justice  first,  but  also  from  His 
purity,  His  wisdom,  His  goodness,  His  love. 
And  the  condemnation  expresses  every  side  of 
His  relation  to  the  world.  As  Creator,  He  dis- 

i  Luke  xii.  5. 


The  Sin  of  the  World  45 

approves  the  marring  of  the  ideal.  As  Judge, 
He  condemns  the  transgression  of  the  law.  As 
Lord,  He  resents  and  reproves  treason  and  rebel- 
lion against  His  government.  As  Father,  He 
is  wounded  and  offended  by  ingratitude  against 
His  love  and  separation  from  His  fellowship. 
All  these  holy  perfections  are  included  and  im- 
plied in  that  mysterious  reality  of  which  the 
Scripture  speaks  as  "  the  wrath  of  God,  coming 
upon  the  children  of  disobedience."1 

But  there  is  a  form  in  which  this  truth  of  A  false 
the   divine  wrath   has    been   presented  which  d 
makes  it  utterly  hateful,  and,  indeed,  incred- 
ible.    It  is  the  form  which  forgets  and  denies 
those   perfections   of   God   out   of    which   His 
indignation   proceeds.      It  is   the  form  which 
introduces   sin  itself    into   the   very  heart   of 
God's  feeling  against  sin.     It  is  the  form  which 
makes   Him  fierce,  vindictive,  implacable,  and 
cruel. 

To  defame  and  dishonour  the  divine  wrath 
is  worse  than  to  doubt  or  deny  it. 

To  separate  God's  indignation  against  sin 
from  His  love  toward  man  is  to  blaspheme  His 
name. 

This  is  the  fault  of  which,  alas,  human  theol- 
ogy has  too  often  been  guilty,  —  a  fault  which 

*  Eph.  v.  6. 


46  The  Sin  of  the  World 

has  brought  its  own  deep  punishment  in  the 
revolt  of  human  nature  against  the  hideous  mis- 
representation of  religion.  Take  two  examples 
of  this  black  caricature  of  God's  feeling  toward 
sin,  from  the  writings  of  Robert  South,  one  of 
the  most  eloquent  and  eminent  preachers  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

God  "  The  same  relation  of  a  Creator  that  endears 

slandered.  Q-od  to  the  innocent,  fires  Him  against  a  sin- 
ner. God  looks  upon  the  soul  as  Amnon  did 
upon  Tamar :  while  it  was  a  virgin  He  loved 
it ;  but  now  it  is  deflowered  he  hates  it." 

"  A  physician  has  a  servant ;  while  this  ser- 
vant lives  honestly  with  him  he  is  fit  to  be 
used  and  to  be  employed  in  his  occasions ;  but 
if  this  servant  should  commit  a  felony  and  for 
that  be  condemned,  he  can  then  be  actively 
serviceable  to  him  no  longer;  he -is  fit  only  for 
him  to  dissect,  and  make  an  object  upon  which 
to  show  the  experiments  of  his  skill.  So  while 
man  was  yet  innocent  he  was  fit  to  be  used  by 
God  in  a  way  of  active  obedience;  but  now 
having  sinned,  and  being  sentenced  by  the  law 
to  death  as  a  malefactor,  he  is  a  fit  matter  only 
for  God  to  torment  and  show  the  wonders  of 
His  vindictive  justice." 

The  world  is  to  be  congratulated  that  such 
teaching  as  this  has  become  obsolete  and  in- 


The  Sin  of  the   World  47 

credible.  Whatever  system  of  theology  it  may 
have  belonged  to,  is  now  as  dead  as  Dagon. 
A  God  who  had  any  resemblance  in  His  char- 
acter to  that  vilest  and  most  despicable  sinner, 
Amnon,  a  God  who  could  use  His  children, 
even  after  they  had  disobeyed  Him,  as  "fit 
matter  to  torment  and  show  the  wonders  of 
His  vindictive  justice,"  would  be  a  nightmare 
horror  of  moral  monstrosity,  infinitely  worse 
than  no  God  at  all.  To  worship  such  a  God 
would  be  to  worship  an  omnipotent  devil. 

God  cannot  be  angry,  even  against  sin,  as  sin-  God's  wrath 
f ul  men  are  angry,  because  in  Him  there  is  no  as  pure  as 

.  Sis  love. 

sin.  Whatever  His  holy  wrath  against  evil 
may  mean,  it  certainly  must  be  eternally  con- 
sistent with  His  purity,  His  goodness,  His 
compassion,  and  His  love. 

Therefore,  the  true  fear  which  is  an  element 
in  the  sense  of  sin,  —  the  fear  which  is  simply 
seeing  what  evil  is,  what  judgment  is,  what 
law  is,  and  what  punishment  is, — the  fear 
which  is  reverent,  sober,  steadying,  stimu- 
lating, healthful,  —  the  fear  which  gives  depth 
and  grandeur  to  our  conception  of  the  world 
and  enters  mightily  into  every  serious  and 
noble  life,  —  the  fear  which  is  not  spiritual 
cowardice,  but  an  incitement  to  courage,  not 
abject  superstition,  but  a  reasonable  awe, — 


48  The  Sin  of  the   World 

the  fear  which  comes  upon  every  sinful  soul 
as  an  influence  of  quickening  intelligence,  a 
powerful  movement  of  imperilled  life,  in  the 
presence  of  the  just  and  holy  God,  —  this  fear 
carries  in  its  heart  a  secret  and  imperishable 
hope. 

The  prodi-  The  hope  that  dwells  in  the  sense  of  sin ! 
Strange  mystery  of  the  deepest  of  all  sorrows, — 
seed  of  light  hidden  in  the  womb  of  darkness, 
—  indomitable  testimony  of  the  lost  soul  to  its 
faith  that  some  one  is  seeking  for  it  in  the 
wilderness ! 

Sin  is  the  separation  of  man  from  God. 

The  sense  of  sin  is  God's  unbroken  hold 
upon  the  heart  of  man. 

The  sacrifices  on  myriad  altars  bear  wit- 
ness to  it.  The  prayers  of  penitence  rising 
from  all  dark  corners  of  the  earth  bear  witness 
to  it.  The  tremulous  homeward-turnings  of 
innumerable  souls  from  far  countries  of  misery 
and  loneliness  bear  witness  to  it. 

"  Father,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven  and 
in  thy  sight,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be 
called  thy  son  !  " 

But  mark,  —  he  still  says,  Father! 


Ill 

THE  BIBLE  WITHOUT  CHEIST 


But  were  he  man, 

And  death  ends  all ;  then  was  that  tortured  death 
On  Calvary  a  thing  to  make  the  pulse 
Of  memory  quail  and  stop. 

—  RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER,  In  Palestine. 
60 


Ill 

THE  BIBLE  WITHOUT  CHRIST 

THE  Bible,  if  indeed  it  be  the  true  text-book  what  we 
of  religion,  must  contain  the  answer  to  man's  need  in  the 

Bible. 

cry  as  a  sinner  to  God  as  a  Saviour.  It  must 
disclose  to  man  a  remedy  for  the  pain,  a  conso- 
lation for  the  shame,  a  rescue  from  the  fear,  and 
a  confirmation  of  the  secret  hope,  that  he  dimly 
and  confusedly  feels  in  the  sense  of  sin.  A 
Bible  with  no  message  of  deliverance  from  sin 
would  be  a  useless  luxury  in  a  sinful  world.  It 
would  lack  that  quality  of  perfect  fitness  to 
human  need  which  is  one  of  the  most  luminous 
evidences  of  a  divine  word.  The  presence  of  a 
clear  message  of  salvation  is  an  essential  element 
in  the  proof  of  inspiration. 

That  there  is  such  a  message  of  salvation  in  The  word  of 
the  Bible,  no  intelligent  reader  can  deny.    That  * 
it  centres  in  Christ,  is  what  this  chapter  is  in- 
tended to  show. 

Jesus  Himself  took  this  view  of  the  Scrip- 
tures.    To  the  unbelieving  Jews,  who  trusted 
in  their  sacred  books  but  felt  no  need  of  Him, 
51 


52  The  Bible  without  Christ 

He  said,  "  Search  the  Scriptures ;  for  in  these 
ye  think  ye  have  eternal  life  :  and  they  are  they 
which  testify  of  me."1 
What  would  Suppose  for  a  moment  that  this  were  a  mis- 
take.  Suppose  that  there  were  no  testimonies 
to  Christ  in  the  Old  Testament,  no  promises  of 
His  coming,  no  foreshadowings  of  His  saving 
mission  and  power,  —  only  law  and  ritual,  poetry 
and  history,  philosophy  and  prophecy. 

Suppose  also  that  the  New  Testament  con- 
tained nothing  but  the  record  of  the  moral 
teachings  of  Jesus  and  His  followers,  without 
reference  to  His  life  and  death  as  a  visible 
revelation  of  divine  justice  and  mercy  in  per- 
sonality and  action.  Suppose  that  it  had  not  a 
word  to  say  about  His  work  in  relation  to  men 
as  sinners.  Suppose,  in  short,  that  it  gave  the 
words  of  Jesus  about  the  reality  and  nature  and 
guilt  of  sin,  about  the  pain  and  shame  and  fear 
of  humanity,  but  no  explanation  of  Him,  no 
recognition  of  what  He  did  and  suffered,  no 
view  of  His  crucifixion  and  resurrection,  in  their 
bearing  upon  the  sin  of  the  world. 

Suppose  the  Bible  without  Christ.  What  hope 
of  salvation  would  it  contain?      What  would 
it  be  worth  to  us  ?    What  would  be  left  of  it  as 
the  divine  answer  to  the  need  of  a  sinful  world  ? 
i  John  v.  39. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  53 

In  the  Old  Testament,  with  its  partial  and 
imperfect  vision  of  the  nature  of  evil,  an  un- 
broken shadow. 

In  the  New  Testament,  with  its  poignant 
disclosure  of  the  secret  of  sin,  an  intolerable 
light. 

We  can  never  realize  the  true  meaning  and  The  expert- 
value  of  this  book  of  the  world's  hope  until  we  ment' 
try  the  experiment  of  reading  it  without  the 
message  which  makes  it  hopeful.      How  the 
Bible  centres  in  Christ  can  be  learned  best  by 
trying  to  take  Christ  out  of  the  Bible. 


54  The  Bible  without  Christ 


The   Unbroken  Shadow 

The  pictures       The  Old  Testament  does  not  begin  with  a 

of  Genesis.  theorv  of  tne  nature  of  God  and  the  origin  of 
evil.  It  begins  with  a  picture  of  creation, 
followed  immediately  by  a  picture  of  the  en- 
trance of  evil  into  the  world,  and  from  this 
point  it  unrolls  a  graphic  panorama  of  human 
life. 

Some  people  interpret  this  panorama  of 
Genesis  as  a  series  of  scientific  diagrams. 
Others  interpret  it  as  a  series  of  poetic  illus- 
trations. It  makes  little  difference  in  regard 
to  their  value  for  purposes  of  spiritual  instruc- 
tion. Upon  the  whole,  the  vital  truths  by 
which  the  souls  of  men  live,  have  been  con- 
veyed in  poetic  illustrations  rather  more  fre- 
quently and  fully  than  in  scientific  diagrams. 
Dante's  Divine  Comedy  has  taught  more  than 
Euclid's  Geometry. 

The  vision         One  thing  is  clear  in  the  book  of  Genesis. 

and  the         gy  wnatever  method  we  translate  its  records, 

background.       J 

their  meaning  is  the  same.  They  show  a 
vision  of  human  sin,  conflict,  and  suffering, 
against  a  divine  background  of  offended  love, 
righteous  indignation,  and  just  retribution. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  55 

This  view  of  human  life  corresponds  very 
closely  with  what  we  know  of  it  from  other 
sources. 

Unruly  appetite,  lustful  passion,  envy  and 
discord,  violence  and  terror  and  guilt,  are 
written  as  clearly  in  the  story  of  the  begin- 
nings of  all  tribes  and  nations  and  families, 
as  in  the  story  of  Adam  and  Eve,  Cain  and 
Abel,  Noah,  Abraham,  and  Jacob. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a  pure  and  God  hates 
righteous  God  could  look  upon  such  a  race, 
made  in  His  own  image,  with  dominion  over  man. 
the  creatures,  and  with  capacities  of  infinite 
development  in  wisdom  and  virtue  and  power, 
yet  descending  to  lower  depths  of  animalism 
than  the  very  beasts  of  the  field,  developing 
passions  more  cruel  and  treacherous  and  base 
than  those  of  the  brute  creation,  —  upon  such 
a  race  it  is  impossible  that  God  should  look 
without  repulsion  and  holy  wrath.  Not  wrath 
as  we  know  it,  always  tainted  with  selfishness, 
but  wrath  as  only  God  can  know  it,  absolutely 
unselfish  and  springing  out  of  frustrated 
benevolence.  The  more  He  loves  men  and 
women,  the  more  He  must  hate  the  evil  which 
mars  His  image  in  their  characters  and  defeats 
His  design  in  their  lives. 

Now  take  away  out  of  these  pictures  which 


56 


The  Bible  without  Christ 


The  ray  of  are  given  in  Genesis,  that  one  ray  of  light 
soured.  which  flashes  in  the  Messianic  promise  that  the 
seed  of  the  woman  shall  bruise  the  serpent's 
head,1  that  one  thread  of  gold  which  runs  from 
this  promise  through  the  lives  of  those  who 
believe  in  God,  keeping  them  in  touch  with 
Him,  making  them  His  faithful  seed,  because 
from  them  there  is  to  come  a  star,  a  sceptre,  a 
Shiloh  unto  whom  the  nations  shall  be  gathered,2 

—  take  away  that  ray  of  light,  that  thread  of 
gold,  and  what  remains  ?     Sin  and  shame  and 
struggle  below;  baffled  love,  frustrated  benevo- 
lence,   inevitable    condemnation    above.      The 
expulsion    from   Eden  —  the  thorn-cursed   soil 

—  the  brand  on  the  brow  of  Cain  —  the  shat- 
tered Babel  —  the  whelming  flood  —  the  fiery 
tempest  on  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  —  wars  and 
disasters,  tumults  and  captivities  —  man  a  re- 
bellious, wretched,  wandering  creature  —  God 
justly  offended  at  the  violation  of  His  law  —  a 
sin-twisted,  suffering,  fearful  world  below  —  a 
stainless,  silent  heaven  above,  —  and  no  bridge 
across  the  gulf. 

Sinai.  Now  turn  to  the  law  given  through  Moses. 

His   part   in    history  was   twofold.      He  was 
the   leader  of   the  Exodus ;    and    that   means 


iQen.  iii.  15. 


2  Gen.  xlix.  10. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  57 

emancipation  from  human  tyranny.  He  was 
the  explorer  of  Sinai ;  and  that  means  subjuga- 
tion to  divine  justice. 

Alpine  climbers  reckon  their  glory  by  the 
conquest  of  virgin  peaks  of  snow  and  ice. 
Moses  made  the  first  ascent  of  a  virgin  peak 
of  fire  and  smoke.  The  landscape  that  he  saw 
from  that  summit  was  ringed  by  the  horizon 
of  immutable  law. 

Moses  talked  with  God  face  to  face.  But 
there  was  a  frown  upon  the  divine  counte- 
nance, and  the  voice  which  spoke  to  him  was 
as  stern  as  fate.  The  people  heard  it  only  as 
the  voice  of  a  trumpet,  mysterious  and  inar- 
ticulate, whereat  they  did  exceedingly  fear 
and  quake,  and  entreated  that  it  should  not 
be  spoken  unto  them  any  more.  But  Moses 
heard  the  words,  and  knew  that  they  were 
inevitable  and  eternal. 

Ten  commandments  he  brought  down  from  "Thoushalt 
the  mount,  written  out  clearly  so  that  all  men  not' 
should  understand  them,  and  on  stone  so  that 
they  should  endure  to  all  generations.      One 
of   the  commandments  was  positive.     Nine  of 
them  were   negative.      Moses  was  the  divine 
prohibitionist.      Nine -tenths    of    his    emphasis 
lies  on  the  "Thou  shalt  not." 

But  the  point  that  pierces  us,  in  this  revela- 


58  The  Bible  without  Christ 

11  But  I  tion  through  Moses,  is  that  every  "  Thou  shalt 
not"  is  a  disclosure  of  what  men  have  done, 
and  are  prone  to  do,  and  would  like  to  do  again 
if  they  dared.  The  commandments  sound  like 
a  shouting  from  the  mountain-top  of  the  secrets 
of  many  hearts.  After  each  divine  word  which 
says,  "  Thou  shalt  not,"  follows  a  human  mur- 
mur which  says,  "But  I  will." 

The  history  A  Bible  was  once  published  in  which,  by  a 
of  Israel.  typographical  error,  the  not  was  omitted  from 
the  seventh  commandment.  It  was  called  "  the 
wicked  Bible."  The  history  of  Israel,  start- 
ing from  Sinai,  reads  like  a  commentary  on  a 
wicked  Bible  with  the  printer's  error  multiplied 
by  ten.  Carry  the  commandments  through  the 
books  of  the  Judges  and  the  Kings,  and  you 
must  acknowledge  that  they  compel  the  con- 
clusion that  man  is  what  he  ought  not  to  be, 
and  ought  not  to  be  what  he  is. 

The  bright         The  one  bright  spot  in  the   law  given  by 
tpot  hidden.  jy[oses  js  tne  commandment  to  make  a  mercy- 
seat  in  the  Tabernacle,  where  the  sins  of  the 
people  may  be  confessed  before  Almighty  God,1 
and  where  the  blood  of  sacrifice,  sprinkled  upon 
the  Ark,  may  symbolize  an  atonement  between 
man   and   God.      The   one   good   hope   which 
cheered  Moses  in  his  ministry  to  a  disobedient 
1  Ex.  xxv. ;  Lev.  xvi. 


The  Bille  without  Christ  59 

and  gainsaying  folk,  was  the  promise  that  God 
would  raise  up  a  prophet  from  among  his  breth- 
ren unto  whom  the  people  should  hearken.1 
Blot  out  that  prediction  of  Christ,  and  Moses 
stands  as  an  embodiment  of  failure,  —  a  leader 
who  emancipated  the  nation  and  condemned  the 
race,  —  the  messenger  of  a  divine  law  which 
was  broken  even  while  he  was  carrying  it  down 
from  the  burning  mount. 

Turn  from   history  and  law  to  poetry  and  The  music 
experience.      In  the   Psalms   the   thunders  of  °^ Psalms- 
Sinai    are    set    to    music   and   translated   into 
song. 

But  what  is  that  song?  It  is  the  song  of 
the  unattainable.  It  is  the  lyric  utterance  of 
desire  and  disappointment,  shame  and  peni- 
tence. Those  broken-hearted  Psalms  !  How 
they  ring  the  changes  on  human  frailty  and 
suffering  and  remorse !  How  sad  and  search- 
ing the  light  with  which  they  are  illuminated 
in  the  story  of  David's  life  ! 

He  could  sing  divinely,  but  he  could  not 
live  as  he  sang. 

Sin  is  the  shadow  on  genius. 

Literature  full  of  beauty  and  harmony  :  life   The  discord 
full  of  ugliness  and  discord.     A  book  written  °^  li^e' 

1  Deut.  xviii.  16. 


60  The  Bible  without   Christ 

with  simplicity  and  purity  and  noble  senti- 
ment: a  writer  touched  with  vanity  and  self- 
ishness, impurity  and  vengeful  passion.  How 
often  has  that  strange  contrast  been  discovered  ! 
David  knew  his  own  infirmity  and  guilt. 
He  knew  the  corruption  and  disgrace  of  his 
house.  He  laid  hold  on  the  promise  of  divine 
mercy  in  the  Christ.  He  looked  and  longed 
for  the  coming  of  that  King  who  should  reign 
in  righteousness  forever.  He  did  not  under- 
stand the  full  meaning  of  that  hope.  He  held 
fast  to  it  as  a  drowning  man  clings  to  a  rope  in 
the  night.  He  does  not  see  it.  He  feels  it. 
The  gleam  Take  away  that  rescuing  hope  of  divine  help 
^a^  uPon  one  wno  ig  mighty  to  save,1  and  what 
is  left  in  the  Psalms  ?  A  passion  of  longing 
for  inaccessible  holiness. 

"  The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star, 

Of  the  night  for  the  morrow ; 
The  devotion  to  something  afar 
From  the  sphere  of  our  sorrow." 

The  poetry  of  the  Bible  without  Christ  is  a 
musical  confession  of  the  impossibility  of  get- 
ting out  of  God's  sight,  and  of  the  hopelessness 
of  being  pure  enough  in  heart  to  have  sight 
of  God. 

i  Psalm  Ixxxix.  19. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  61 

Does  the  philosophy  of   the  Bible  bring  us  Solomon's 
any  different  message,  apart  from  Christ  ? 

Solomon  stands  in  the  Old  Testament  as  the 
representative  of  wisdom.  In  the  books  that 
bear  his  name  the  divine  commandments  are 
cut  and  polished  into  the  jewels  of  an  ethical 
system.  They  become  brilliant,  symmetrical, 
memorable ;  compact  treasures  of  morality,  fit 
to  keep  —  in  a  storehouse. 

A  hundred  epigrams  flash  from  the  divine 
law,  in  the  hands  of  Solomon,  like  rays  of 
light.  Its  wisdom,  reasonableness,  and  beauty 
are  exhibited  from  every  side.  We  see  how 
prudent,  how  profitable,  how  admirable  it  is  to 
be  perfectly  good,  —  and  how  impossible  ! 

The  king  who  made  these  diamond  proverbs  Solomon's 
was  the  man  who  showed  us  how  easily  they  *°  y' 
may  be  burned  to  coal  in  the  flame  of  passion. 

The  eleventh  chapter  of  the  First  Book  of 
Kings  is  the  record  of  an  experiment  in  the 
reduction  of  philosophy  to  ashes.  The  lover 
of  wisdom  chooses  folly  for  his  bed-fellow. 
The  sage  whose  shining  words  rise  like  an  airy 
ladder  toward  the  skies,  finds,  like  other  men, 
that  the  downward  path  is  the  easiest.  The 
wisest  of  mankind,  in  theory,  becomes  the 
meanest,  in  practice,  —  an  idolater  despising 
idols,  a  sensualist  praising  virtue,  a  tyrant 


62  The  Bible  without  Christ 

extolling  justice,  an  unchained  prisoner  of  his 
own  despair. 

Solomon's  The  book  of  Ecclesiastes,  whoever  wrote  it, 
epitaph.  contains  the  epitaph  of  Solomon.  "  Vanity  of 
vanities,  all  is  vanity."  It  is  the  hand-book 
of  pessimists ;  the  tragic  monodrama  of  man's 
self -betrayal ;  the  epic  of  the  suicide  of  hope. 
Close  the  book,  and  write  upon  it  this  sentence, 
"The  world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God."1 

The  mount         Beyond    philosophy    rises    prophecy,  —  the 
of  prophecy.  moun^  of  yjgion^  whose  top  touches  the  stars 
and  whose  horizon  spreads  beyond  the  encir- 
cling ocean-stream  of  time. 

The  human  name  that  is  graven  highest  on 
this  mountain  is  the  name  of  Isaiah.  Whether 
that  name  represents  the  prophetic  elevation  of 
only  one  among  the  sons  of  men,  or  of  more 
than  one,  matters  little  to  us  in  our  present 
study.  The  Isaiah-spirit  is  the  same,  whether 
the  mount  was  climbed  but  once,  or  more  than 
once.  The  loftiest  point  reached  in  the  Old 
Testament  is  that  at  which  we  see,  in  lonely 
grandeur,  a  human  figure  called  Isaiah. 

There  he  stands,  above  the  confusions  and 
perturbations,  the  wrecked  hopes,  and  the  on- 
rushing  calamities,  the  shames  and  fears,  the 
1 1  Cor.  i.  21. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  63 

desolations  and  disasters  of  his  people.  He 
looks  around  him,  with  unsealed  eyes,  and  what 
is  it  that  he  beholds  ? 

He  sees  "  one  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  Isaiah's 
dyed   garments   from    Bozrah,  glorious   in   his  hope' 
apparel,   travelling    in    the    greatness    of    his 
strength,   speaking    in    righteousness,    mighty 
to  save." l    But  this  vision,  if  there  is  no  Christ 
in  the  Old  Testament,  is  a  delusion,  a  mirage, 
a  Brocken-spectre.     It  vanishes.     And  what  is 
left? 

An  unbroken  shadow  of  disgrace,  despair,  The  residue 
and  gloom,  resting  like  night  upon  the  world.  ^  desPair- 
"Ah  sinful  nation,  a  people  laden  with  in- 
iquity, a  seed  of  evil  doers,  children  that  are  cor- 
rupters :  they  have  forsaken  the  Lord,  they  have 
provoked  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  unto  anger, 
they  are  gone  away  backward."  2  Burden  after 
burden,  in  the  prophet's  song,  —  the  burden 
of  Babylon,  the  burden  of  Moab,  the  burden 
of  Damascus,  the  burden  of  Egypt.  Doom 
after  doom,  around  the  prophet's  horizon,  —  the 
doom  of  Israel,  the  doom  of  Judah.  "The 
whole  head  is  sick,  and  the  whole  heart  faint. 
From  the  sole  of  the  foot  even  unto  the  head 
there  is  no  soundness  in  it;  but  wounds,  and 
bruises,  and  putrifying  sores."3 

i  Is.  Ixiii.  1.  2  Is.  i.  4.  8  Is.  i.  6,  6. 


64 


The  Bible  without   Christ 


The  world's 
want. 


The  dream 
departs. 


Never  man  lived  on  earth  who  felt  so  deeply 
the  world's  want  of  a  Saviour  from  sin  as  Isaiah 
felt  it.  Never  man  saw  so  clearly  that  hu- 
manity is  helpless  and  hopeless  under  the  power 
of  evil  unless  God  comes  to  the  rescue.  The 
law's  maker  must  be  its  keeper.  He  who 
cursed  sin  must,  come  and  take  it  away.  A 
redeeming  God,  holy  and  therefore  obedient, 
loving  and  therefore  suffering,  faithful  and 
therefore  triumphant, —  this  is  the  Immanuel 
who  is  needed  in  a  world  of  sin.  Isaiah's  soul 
was  driven  by  that  need  upward  and  upward 
on  the  mount  of  vision,  higher  and  higher  in 
the  divine  solitude  of  inspiration.  From  that 
lofty  height  his  voice  floated  down  in  songs  of 
glorious  cheer  to  his  fellow-men.  "  Comfort 
ye,  comfort  ye,  my  people." 1  "  Rejoice  ye  with 
Jerusalem,  and  be  glad  with  her,  all  ye  that 
love  her :  rejoice  for  joy  with  her,  all  ye  that 
mourn  for  her."  2 

But  what  was  it  that  he  saw  to  kindle  that 
singing  hope  in  his  soul?  Nothing.  He 
dreamed,  but  there  was  really  nothing  for 
him  to  see. 

There  was  no  roseate  dawn  on  the  far  edge 
of  night,  no  auroral  radiance  of  a  virgin-born 
Prince  of  Peace,  no  prophetic  gleam  of  the 
i  Is.  xl.  1.  2  is.  ixvi.  10. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  65 

glory  of  a  Kinsman  Redeemer  who  should  bear 
our  griefs  and  carry  our  sorrows,  who  should 
be  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  and  by 
whose  stripes  we  should  be  healed.  When 
Isaiah  thought  that  he  saw  the  upward-break- 
ing rays  of  such  a  brightness,  it  was  but  an 
illusion  of  sleep.  There  was  no  Christ.  There 
was  to  be  no  Christ.  God  never  intended  it. 
Man  only  imagined  it.  The  high  and  holy 
One  who  inhabiteth  eternity  looked  upon  the 
inhabitants  of  earth,  "and  he  saw  that  there 
was  no  man,  and  wondered  that  there  was 
no  intercessor."  *  But  His  arm  did  not  bring 
salvation  unto  Him,  neither  did  His'  righteous- 
ness sustain  Him.  The  Redeemer  never  meant 
to  come  to  Zion.  He  was  too  great,  too  infinite 
to  enter  into  human  life,  and  be  numbered  with 
the  transgressors,  and  bear  the  sin  of  many, 
and  make  intercession  for  the  transgressors. 
The  very  thought  of  such  an  advent  was  folly 
and  presumption. 

Isaiah  awakes  from  his  dream.     Every  trace   The  prophet 
of  the  Christ  disappears  from  his  vision,  blotted 
out  in  the  encircling  night.     What  is  his  mes- 
sage now  ?     What  song  is  left  on  his  lips  ? 

A  cry  of  woe  and  desolation.     "  They  shall 
look  unto  the  earth;   and  behold  trouble  and 

i  Is.  lix.  16. 

r 


66  The  Bible  without  Christ 

darkness,  dimness  of  anguish  ;  and  they  shall 
be  driven  to  darkness."  *  "  Your  iniquities  have 
separated  between  you  and  your  God,  and  your 
sins  have  hid  his  face  from  you,  that  he  will 
not  hear."2 

The  night          There  is  no  explanation  of  the  mystery  of 
ascends.       eviL    ^QJ.Q  is  no  light  upon  the  f  uture.    There 

is  only  a  shadow  resting  over  all  the  earth,  a 
shadow  hiding  the  very  face  of  God,  —  an  un- 
broken shadow  falling  from  the  Old  Testament 
without  Christ. 

i  Is.  viii.  22.  2  Is.  lix.  2. 


The  Bible  without  Qhrist  67 

0 

II 

The  Intolerable  Light 

It  may  seem  as  if  it  were  impossible  to  take  A  book  filled 
Christ  out  of  the  New  Testament  without  de-  with  Jesus' 
stroying  it  altogether.      So  entirely  does  the 
personality  of  Jesus  pervade  the  book,  that  if 
He  were  withdrawn  it  would  fall  to  pieces,  like 
a  tower  from  which  the  mortar  had  been  all 
removed. 

But  it  is  not  of  Jesus  as  an  example  of  noble  Jesus 
manhood,  a  teacher  of  moral  truth,  a  worker  of  ^vided 

from  Christ. 

social  reform,  that  I  speak.  It  is  of  Jesus  as 
the  Christ,  the  divinely  anointed  redeemer  of 
men,  the  bringer  of  salvation  from  sin.  These 
two  aspects  of  Jesus  were,  indeed,  vitally  united 
in  fact.  Yet  it  is  possible  to  separate  them  in 
thought.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  New  Tes- 
tament might  have  reported  Jesus  to  us  as  a 
prophet  without  making  any  revelation  of  Him 
as  the  Saviour. 

Such  a  conception  has  already  been  enter- 
tained among  men.  It  has  been  presented  by 
some  teachers,  whose  literary  and  historical 
sense  is  very  imperfect,  as  an  interpretation  of 
what  the  New  Testament  actually  is.  It  has 
been  put  forward  by  others,  whose  scholarship 


68  The  Bible  without  Christ 

is  better,  as  a  theory  of  what  the  New  Testa- 
ment ought  to  be,  and  probably  would  have 
been,  if  it  had  been  written  in  an  age  free  from 
superstition. 

A  new  kind  That  which  is  really  valuable  in  the  book,  we 
Testament  are  told,  is  its  picture  of  a  beautiful  character, 
its  rules  for  good  conduct,  its  spirit  of  piety 
and  virtue,  the  clear  light  which  it  throws  upon 
God  and  human  life  and  immortality.  If  it 
contained  only  the  Sermon,  on  the  Mount,  it 
would  still  be  complete  and  sufficient.  The 
substance  of  it  all  could  be  put  into  an  ethical 
creed.  The  essential  Jesus  is  only  the  teacher 
and  illustrator  of  a  perfect  morality.  He  is  the 
central  figure  of  Christianity  not  because  He 
did  more  than  man  can  do,  but  simply  because 
He  did  what  every  man  ought  to  do.  All  that 
goes  beyond  this  in  the  New  Testament,  —  all 
that  refers  to  Him  as  the  sacrifice  for  sin,  the 
mediator  between  God  and  man,  the  only  begot- 
ten Son  who  came  forth  from  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  was  born  and  lived,  was  crucified  and 
died',  was  buried  and  rose  again,  in  order  to 
redeem  and  reconcile  the  world  to  God,  —  is 
partly  imaginary,  and  partly  superstitious,  and 
wholly  unnecessary.  A  New  Testament  with- 
out Christ  in  this  sense,  would  be  not  only  pos- 
sible, but  very  desirable. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  69 

The  experiment  may  be  tried.  The  testimony  what  is  it 
of  Jesus  and  the  Apostles  in  regard  to  His  work  worth? 
as  the  Saviour  may  be  obliterated,  as  the  Russian 
censor  "blacks  out"  the  passages  of  a  book 
which  he  deems  dangerous.  The  cross  as  the 
central  scene  of  the  great  reconciliation  between 
man  and  God  may  be  hidden.  Christ  as  the 
deliverer  from  sin  and  death  may  be  annulled 
in  our  thought.  We  shall  then  be  able  to  esti- 
mate the  meaning  and  value  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment without  Him. 

There  are  two  things  in  the  book  which  must   Two  points 
strike  every  fair-minded  reader.     In  two  points  illuminated- 
it  is  distinguished  among  all  the  books  of  the 
world.     It  gives  a  new  and  intensely  searching 
view  of  the  problem  of  moral  evil.    It  is  written 
from  beginning  to  end  in  sight  of  death  as  the 
door  which  leads  into  eternity. 

On  these  two  points  the  New  Testament 
pours  an  unrivalled  light.  Does  it  give  us  any 
comfort  or  hope  in  regard  to  them,  without 
Christ? 

It  was  Jesus   of  Nazareth   who  illuminated   what  Jesus 
the  moral  evil  in  the  world  most  deeply  and  saysc 
clearly.      He    showed    its    spring,    its   secret 
workings,  and  the  power  which  lies  behind  it. 
Calmly,  steadily,  with  a  sublime  indifference  to 


70 


The  Bible  without  Christ 


The  sanity 
of  His 
doctrine. 


The  pene- 
tration of 
His  doctrine. 


theory,  with  an  inexorable  sense  of  the  facts  of 
human  life,  He  pressed  His  serene  and  faithful 
analysis  of  sin  home  to  its  centre  in  the  inner 
life  of  man. 

A  falsehood  on  the  lips  means  a  lie  in  the 
heart.  Violence  in  conduct  means  a  cruel 
streak  in  character.  Uncleanness  in  the  life 
means  impurity  in  the  soul.  "Those  things 
which  proceed  out  of  the  mouth  come  forth  from 
the  heart ;  and  they  defile  the  man." 1 

Jesus  does  not  say  that  everything  in  human 
nature  is  evil.  He  does  not  say  that  all  men 
are  entirely  depraved.  He  recognizes  the  good 
things  that  a  good  man  bringeth  forth  out  of  his 
good  treasure.2  But  he  says  also  that  all  men, 
even  the  best,  have  need  to  be  converted  and 
become  as  little  children  ; 3  all  men  owe  a  vast 
debt  which  they  are  unable  to  pay  ; 4  all  men 
are  unprofitable  servants  ; 6  all  men  have  some- 
thing to  repent  of,  in  the  presence  of  God.6 

And  this  something  which  demands  repent- 
ance is  not  outward  and  accidental ;  it  is  in- 
ward and  personal.  It  is  the  angry  passion ; 
it  is  the  impure  imagination  ;  it  is  .the  secret 
unbelief  which  blinds  the  soul.  All  the  excuses 
with  which  men  cover  and  hide  their  sin  grow 


1  Matt.  xv.  18. 

2  Matt.  xii.  35. 


8  Matt,  xviii.  3. 
*  Matt,  xviii.  23. 


6  Luke  xvii.  10. 
6  Luke  xiii.  3. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  71 

thin  and  transparent  in  the  light  of  this  search- 
ing analysis.  Jesus  reveals  the  underlying 
facts.  The  sins  of  men  are  not  the  result  of 
circumstances,  the  fruit  of  outward  tempta- 
tions, things  which  belong  to  the  world  and 
the  age  in  which  we  live.  They  are  things 
which  belong  to  us  and  come  from  us.  The 
fashions  and  forms  of  sin  change  with  the  cen- 
turies and  differ  in  different  lands.  But  the 
essence  of  it  is  always  the  same.  It  comes 
from  within.  The  man  in  whose  heart  the  root 
is  hidden  is  responsible  for  the  fruit.  This  is 
what  Jesus  says  about  the  source  of  sin. 

No  less  clear  and  penetrating  is  His  teaching  The  secret* 
in  regard  to  its  secret  workings  and  its  fatal 
results.  He  reveals  the  truth  that  goodness 
does  not  consist  in  obedience  to  the  letter  of 
the  law,  but  in  harmony  with  its  spirit.  A 
man  may  keep  all  the  commandments,  as  the 
young  ruler  did,  and  yet  because  he  is  selfish 
he  is  outside  of  the  kingdom  of  God.1  A  man 
may  observe  all  the  Mosaic  precepts  and  per- 
form all  the  ritual  of  religion,  as  the  Pharisee 
did,  and  yet  be  a  greater  sinner  than  the  Pub- 
lican who  stands  afar  off  and  beats  upon  his 
breast.2  Men  are  strangers  to  their  own  sins ; 
1  Matt.  xix.  2  Luke  xviii. 


72  The  Bible  without  Christ 

they  do  not  recognize  them  when  they  meet 
them  in  the  street.  They  are  blind  leaders  of 
the  blind,  whose  feet  stumble  in  the  gulf.  The 
angry  impulse  is  the  "blot  in  the  'scutcheon." 
The  real  stain  of  blood  is  on  the  inside  of  the 
heart.  The  idle,  irreverent  word  is  blasphemy. 
There  are  no  human  lips  that  have  not  taken 
God's  name  in  vain.  The  scorn  of  brethren  is  the 
little  spark  that  kindles  unquenchable  flames. 
They  in  whose  breast  this  spark  smoulders  are 
"in  danger  of  hell-fire."1  But  they  do  not 
know  it.  They  carry  their  lighted  candles 
through  the  powder-magazine  with  their  eyes 
shut. 

The  Sermon  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  contains  the  most 
°Mount.  thorough  diagnosis  of  sin  that  has  ever  been 
made.  It  proceeds  by  contrast  with  the  symp- 
toms of  spiritual  health  and  soundness.  The 
Beatitudes  are  not  only  blessings  to  be  desired; 
they  are  also  tests  to  be  applied  to  the  heart. 
It  was  not  without  significance  that  this  dis- 
course was  delivered  from  a  lofty  place.  Its 
ideal  of  holiness  rises  as  far  above  our  actual 
life  as  an  Alpine  peak  of  stainless  snow  above 
the  confusion  and  squalor  and  misery  of  the 
frail  villages  that  hide  in  the  valleys.  "  Be  ye 
perfect  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven 
i  Matt.  v.  22. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  73 

is  perfect."1  That  summit  is  inaccessible  if 
there  is  no  divine  Christ  to  lead  and  lift  us 
thither. 

But  there  is  another  element  in  the  doctrine  The  power 
of  Jesus  in  regard  to  sin  which  we  must  not  behindsin' 
forget.  He  discloses  a  secret  power  behind  it, 
which  clothes  it  with  strange  terror  and  might. 
He  teaches  that  there  is  a  force,  an  influence, 
a  spirit  in  the  world,  which  is  altogether  evil, 
and  which  is  continually  desiring,  seeking,  and 
working  sin.  It  is  the  unclean  spirit  rejoicing 
in  the  defilement  of  the  house  which  it  inhabits.2 
It  is  the  father  of  lies  ready  to  beget  falsehood 
in  every  listening  mind.3  It  is  the  enemy  of 
souls  sowing  tares  in  the  field  by  night.4  It  is 
Satan  longing  to  get  possession  of  the  soul  that 
he  may  sift  it  as  wheat.5 

Whether  we  take  this  teaching  of  Jesus  lit-   The  warn- 
erally  or  not,  whether  we  believe  that  evil  is  m9°^ 
embodied  in  demonic  personality  or  not,  one 
thing  is  unquestionable.      Jesus  regarded  evil 
as    a  positive,  organic,  ever  active,  malignant 
power,  a  Prince  of  this  world,  whose  domain  lies 
all  around  us,  whose  influence  touches  us  on 
every  side,  the  friend  of  sin  and  the  foe  of  the 

i  Matt.  v.  48.  »  John  viii.  44.         «  Luke  xxii.  31. 

a  Matt.  xii.  43  ff.          *  Matt.  xiii.  39. 


74  The  Bible  without  Christ 

soul.  There  is  a  conflict  going  on  in  the  world. 
It  is  not  a  mere  game.  It  is  an  elemental  war- 
fare between  right  and  wrong.  We  are  cast 
into  the  midst  of  this  conflict.  An  unseen, 
mighty,  skilful,  relentless  adversary  is  against 
us.  And  in  every  heart  there  is  a  traitor  ready 
to  betray  the  citadel  into  his  hands. 

The  fear  of  The  additional  fear  which  this  mysterious 
Satan.  teaching  of  Jesus  lends  to  the  sense  of  sin  made 
itself  felt  in  human  experience  for  many  centu- 
ries. Doubtless  it  was  over-emphasized  and 
exaggerated,  by  a  false  interpretation  of  His 
words,  into  an  immense  and  shapeless  terror. 
A  grotesque  and  impossible  devil  tyrannized 
over  ages  of  superstition.  Men  believed  in  a 
Satan  who  was  practically  the  rival  of  God, 
equal  in  power  if  not  in  glory,  and  as  immortal 
in  evil  as  God  is  in  good.  There  is  no  trace 
of  such  a  doctrine  in  the  words  of  Jesus.1  It 
was  natural,  it  was  inevitable,  that  men  should 
react  from  the  exaggeration,  and  cast  off  almost 
entirely,  as  they  have  done  to-day,  the  thought 
of  an  actual  power  of  evil,  outside  of  the  human 
soul  and  inexorably  hostile  to  it. 

But   when   we   return   to   the   teachings    of 
Jesus,  and  study  them  with  candour  and  calm- 
ness, we  see  that  thought  in  His  mind  clearly 
1  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  p.  272. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  75 

and  unmistakably.  He  teaches  us  that  our 
conflict  is  not  merely  with  ourselves.  There 
is  an  enemy  against  us  who  is  mightier  than 
man.  We  need  a  defender,  a  deliverer,  a 
divine  friend  to  fight  with  us  and  for  us. 

Where,  then,  shall  we  look  for  such  a  power-  Who  win 
ful  friend?  If  Jesus  was  not  the  Christ  who  ^htforusf 
came  to  save  us  from  our  sins,  then  there 
is  no  captain  of  salvation,  no  conqueror  of 
Satan,  no  liberator  of  captive  souls.  We  must 
fight  the  battle  alone  against  unknown  and 
heavy  odds.  The  triumph  of  Jesus  over  evil 
was  for  Himself  only.  It  gives  no  assurance 
that  we  also  shall  overcome  the  world.  On 
the  contrary,  it  makes  our  victory  seem  the 
more  doubtful,  when  we  remember  His  perfect 
courage  and  inflexible  strength,  in  contrast 
with  our  waverings  and  the  many  defeats  that 
we  have  already  suffered.  We  have  begun  to 
lose  the  battle  already.  Who  shall  turn  the 
tide  for  our  discouraged  forces  ? 

The  sinlessness  of  Jesus   comforts  us  little  Jesus  our 
unless  it  has  some  remedial  bearing  upon  our  ^m^#ei5 
sins.     If  it  is  but  an  example  of  what  every  our  Saviour. 
man  ought  to  be,  its  very  perfection  daunts  and 
disheartens   us.     Something   less  absolute  and 
flawless  would  be  better  suited  to  our  need. 

In   fact,  men  have  never  dared  or  cared  to 


76 


The  Bible,  without  Christ 


Has  He  no 

power  to 
forgive ? 


make  the  stainless  Jesus  the  real  pattern  of 
their  lives,  until  they  have  learned  to  believe 
in  Him  as  the  redeeming  sacrifice  for  their  sins. 
They  have  chosen  other  ideals,  other  heroes, 
other  examples,  —  less  exacting,  less  disheart- 
ening, less  depressing  by  contrast  with  them- 
selves. 

It  is  the  ransoming  faith  that  "  Christ  suffered 
for  us,"  that  gives  His  disciples  courage  to  say 
that  He  also  left  us  "  an  example  that  we  should 
follow  in  his  steps."1  The  idea  of  "The  Imi- 
tation  of  Christ "  is  hopeful  and  inspiring  only 
to  the  heart  that  has  first  felt  the  liberating 
touch  of  His  pierced  hand.  Sinners  do  not 
venture  to  go  after  the  sinless  Jesus  unless  they 
hear  Him  say  "  The  Son  of  man  hath  power  on 
earth  to  forgive  sins."2 

But  in  a  Christless  gospel  this  word  has  no 
place,  no  meaning.  There  was  no  such  unique 
power  committed  to  the  hands  of  Jesus.  All 
the  consoling,  reassuring,  inspiriting  utterances 
of  Jesus,  which  are  connected  with  His  sublime 
confidence  in  His  divine  mission  and  authority 
to  seek  and  save  the  lost, — utterances  which 
strangely  enough  are  closely  and  inseparably 
connected  with  the  prevision  of  His  death,  His 
laying  down  His  life  for  the  sheep,3  His  lifting 

1 1  Peter  ii.  21.  2  Matt.  ix.  6.  «  John  x.  11. 


The  Bible  without   Christ  77 

up  upon  the  cross,1  —  all  these  words  of  saving 
hope  must  be  "blacked  out." 

They  lose  their  significance,  if  the  Redeemer 
is  lost.  There  was  no  ransom  wrought  upon 
the  cross.  There  was  only  the  payment  of 
the  debt  of  nature.  The  good  Shepherd 
laid  down  His  life.  But  it  was  not  for  the 
sheep.  It  was  only  to  show  the  cruelty  of  the 
robbers.  There  was  no  victory  on  Calvary. 
It  was  a  defeat,  in  which  the  one  sinless  being 
on  earth  was  crushed  and  killed  by  the  sin  of 
the  world,  —  but  not  for  it. 

Let  us  turn  from  the  Gospels  to  the  Epistles,   The  Epistles 
and  consider  what  they  have  to  say  to  us  about  ^r^ 
sin,  when  we  have  taken  out  of  them  the  idea 
of   a  work  wrought   by  Jesus  Christ  for  the 
salvation  of  the  world.     It  is  evident  that  the 
Apostles  have  received  the   teaching   of  %  their 
Master  in  regard  to  the  source,  the  workings, 
the  guilt,  and  the  danger  of  sin,  and  that  it  has 
made  a  profound  impression  upon  them. 

No  doubt  there  was  some  difference  between  St.  Paul  and 
St.  John  and  St.  Paul  in  regard  to  the  philo-  f^°^;~ 
sophic   forms   in   which   they   expressed  their  ing  about 
thought  upon  this  subject.    St.  Paul  was  trained  * 
in  the  rabbinical  theology  of  Jerusalem.     St. 
i  John  iii.  14. 


78  The  Bible  without  Christ 

John  was  influenced  by  the  Platonic  philosophy 
of  Alexandria.  St.  Paul  lays  emphasis  upon  the 
connection  of  sin  with  "  the  flesh,"  with  man's 
lower,  physical  nature.1  St.  John  brings  out 
"the  darkness"  of  sin  as  contrasted  with  the 
light  of  God.2  St.  Paul  traces  the  entrance  of 
sin  into  the  world,  to  Adam's  disobedience.3 
St.  John  speaks  of  "  the  world  "  as  an  order  of 
existence  estranged  from  God,  which  must  not 
be  loved  because  it  is  opposed  to  the  love  of 
God,4  and  declares  that  "  the  whole  world  lieth 
in  the  Evil  One."5  But  both  agree  in  teaching 
that  sin  is  transgression  of  the  divine  law;6 
and  that  its  fruit  is  death.7  It  is  their  sense 
of  the  reality  and  guilt  of  the  transgression, 
their  overwhelming  sense  of  the  greatness  of 
the  disaster  which  threatens  all  men  on  account 
of  it,  that  separates  them  as  writers  from  the 
easy-going,  reckless  pagan  world.  "  If  we  say 
we  have  not  sinned,"  says  St.  John,  "  we  deceive 
ourselves  and  the  truth  is  not  in  us."8  "When 
I  would  do  good,"  cries  St.  Paul,  "evil  is 

1  Kom.  vii.  5  ;  viii.  4,  6 ;  2  Cor.  x.  2  ;  Gal.  v.  17  ;  Eph. 
ii.  3. 

2  1  John  i.  6  ;  ii.  9,  11 ;  Rev.  xvi.  10. 

8  Rom.  v.  12-21.  6  1  John  v.  19. 

*  1  John  ii.  15.  6  1  John  iii.  4  ;  Rom.  vii.  13. 

7  Rom.  vi.  23 ;  viii.   6 ;   1  John  iii.  14 ;   v.  16 ;   2  Cor. 
xv.  66.  8  1  John  i.  8. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  79 

present  with  me.  O  wretched  man  that  I  am, 
who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this 
death?"1 

But  if  this  is  all  that  they  have  to  say  to  us,  is  this  all? 
if  they  bring  us  no  message  of  a  divine  Christ 
who  hath  appeared  to  put  away  sin,  how  lame 
and  impotent  is  their  conclusion  !  Read  St. 
Paul's  answer  to  his  own  question,  who  is  to 
deliver  him,  with  Christ  left  out :  '  I  thank 
God,  through  nobody.'  Read  St.  John's  con- 
solation to  those  who  have  sinned,  without  the 
gospel  of  atonement.  'If  any  man  sin,  we 
have  no  advocate  with  the  Father,  neither  is 
there  any  propitiation  for  our  sins,  nor  for  the 
sins  of  the  whole  world.'  'Herein  is  love,  not 
that  we  loved  God,  but  that  he  did  not  love  us, 
neither  did  send  his  Son  to  be  the  justification 
for  our  sins.' 

Go  on  a  little  further  with  this  Christless  A  negative 
New  Testament.      Listen  to  St.  Paul  again:  gospel? 
'  For  as  through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the 
world,  and   death   through   sin,  and  so   death 
passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all  sinned,  —  even 
so  there  was  no  grace  of  God,  and  the  gift  of 
grace  by  the  one  man,  Jesus  Christ,  did  not 
abound  unto  many.'     'Sin  reigned  unto  death, 
but  grace  did  not  reign  through  righteousness 
i  Rom.  vii.  21,  24. 


80  The  Bible  without  Christ 

unto  eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.'  '  God  commendeth  his  love  towards  us 
in  that  while  we  were  yet  sinners  nobody  died 
for  us.'  'Wherefore  remember  that  ye  were 
aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel  and 
strangers  to  the  covenants  of  promise ;  and 
now  ye  that  were  far  off  are  not  made  nigh  by 
the  blood  of  Christ.'  'God  is  not  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  himself. '  '  There  is 
no  mediator  between  God  and  man.'  'The 
life  that  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  by  faith 
in  myself,  for  the  Son  of  God  did  not  love  me, 
nor  give  himself  for  me.' 

Listen  to  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews :  '  Having  then  no  high  priest  who 
hath  passed  into  the  heavens,  let  us  not  draw 
near  with  boldness  unto  the  throne  of  grace, 
for  we  have  no  promise  of  mercy,  nor  grace  to 
help  in  time  of  need.'  'For  we  are  not  come 
unto  Jesus  the  mediator  of  the  new  covenant, 
and  to  the  blood  of  sprinkling  which  speaketh 
better  things  than  that  of  Abel,  but  unto  Mt. 
Sinai  that  burns  with  fire.' 

Listen  to  St.  Peter :  '  We  know  that  we 
were  not  redeemed,  neither  with  corruptible 
things  as  silver  and  gold,  nor  with  the  precious 
blood  of  Christ  as  of  a  lamb  without  blemish 
and  without  spot.'  'Wherefore,  not  having 


The  Bible  without  Christ  81 

seen  him,  we  love  him  not,  neither  do  we  re- 
joice in  him,  since  we  receive  not  the  end  of 
our  faith,  nor  the  salvation  of  our  souls.' 

This  is  what  the  New  Testament  would  say 
to  a  world  of  sin,  without  Christ.  It  is  surely 
not  consoling. 

But  the  significance  of  this  teaching  is  very  Death  and 
much   intensified   and   deepened  by  the   view  t  e 
which  the  New  Testament  gives  of  death  as  the 
gateway  of  another  life. 

The  heathen  world  in  the  first  century  was 
for  the  most  part  inclined  to  cover  up  the  fact 
of  death  as  much  as  possible,  to  hide  it  in 
flowers,  to  put  it  out  of  sight.  But  the  Chris- 
tians, perhaps  because  they  were  persecuted  and 
afflicted  and  continually  in  danger  of  death, 
perhaps  because  they  had  a  truer  and  a  braver 
philosophy  of  life,  followed  another  course. 
They  faced  death  steadily,  looked  it  in  the 
eyes,  prepared  to  meet  it,  and  conquered  all  its 
terrors  by  their  faith  in  Christ  as  the  Saviour. 

There  is  no  other  book  in  the  world  which 
can .  compare  with  the  New  Testament  in  its 
serene,  unflinching  recognition  of  death's  in- 
evitableness.  There  is  no  other  book  in  the 
world  which  has  so  clear  and  courageous  an 
insight  into  its  eternal  issues.  From  beginning 


82  The  Bible  without  Christ 

to  end  it  is  pervaded  with  the  conviction  that 
"  It  is  appointed  unto  all  men  once  to  die,  and 
after  death  the  judgment." 

The  burden  Now  the  burden  of  death  is  twofold.  There 
is  a  burden  of  present  sorrow  and  anguish,  in 
the  sufferings  of  the  flesh  which  precede  and 
accompany  it,  and  in  the  pains  of  the  spirit 
which  are  associated  with  the  breaking  of  hu- 
man ties  and  the  bereavement  of  love.  There 
is  also  a  burden  of  fear  and  anxiety  for  the 
future,  a  sense  of  apprehension  in  regard  to  the 
perils  and  mysteries  of  the  unknown  world. 

The  faith          Both  of  these  burdens,  in  the  New  Testament, 

that  lightens   ^  lifted  and  brayely  borne  by  trust  in  Christt 

It  is  the  sense  of  fellowship  with  Him  in  their 
sufferings  that  sustains  the  Christians  in  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  It  is  the  confi- 
dence that  He  has  risen  from  the  dead  and  that 
He  will  plead  for  them  at  the  judgment,  that 
enables  them  to  face  the  future  with  composure. 
But  if  Christ  is  taken  away,  both  burdens  fall 
back  with  new  and  crushing  weight  upon  the 
heart.  "If  Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our 
preaching  vain,  and  your  faith  is  also  vain." 
"If  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  Christ, 
we  are  of  all  men  most  miserable."  l 

What    practical    assurance,    what    tangible 
i  Cor.  xv.  14,  19. 


The  Bible  without  Christ  83 

proof,  is   there  of  a  divine   sympathy  in  our  How  do  we 
sufferings,  without  the  vision  of  the  Son  of  God  know  °^ 

\     T~    \  •   £          j  -    -,  God's  sym- 

who  has  borne  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sor-  pathyt 
rows  ?  The  God  of  nature,  the  God  who  made 
the  heavens  bright  and  beautiful  with  stars,  and 
ordained  the  immutable  glories  of  the  revolving 
year,  —  what  can  He  understand  of  the  pains 
that  rack  our  human  hearts,  what  part  has  He 
in  the  broken  and  tragical  drama  of  mortal  life? 
A  sublime  spectator, 

"  He  sees  with  equal  eyes,  as  God  of  all, 
A  hero  perish  or  a  sparrow  fall." 

I  think  a  man  or  woman  with  a  breaking  Nature's 
heart,  pierced  with  the  spear  of  pain,  smitten  indifference> 
with  the  anguish  of  inexorable  separation, 
might  go  out  into  this  splendid  world  in 
the  spring,  when  the  glory  of  earth's  face  is 
renewed  with  joy  and  the  time  for  the  singing 
of  birds  is  come,  —  such  a  lonely,  desolate,  per- 
ishing man  or  woman  might  walk  among  the 
unconscious  flowers,  and  look  up  to  the  silent- 
shining  sky,  and  the  unfriended  heart  would 
break  again  with  the  thought  that  there  is  after 
all  no  clear  word  of  divine  sympathy  with  it,  — 
no  human  life  of  God,  no  Christ  who  wept  at 
the  grave  of  Lazarus,  and  agonized  in  the  gar- 
den, and  died  on  the  cross,  in  order  that  He 


84  The  Bible  without  Christ 

might  know,  with  us,  the  mortal  sorrows  of  a 
world  of  sin  and  death. 

The  risen  What  comfort,  what  peace,  is  there  in  the 
Ghnst.  New  Testament  view  of  death,  unless  we  can 
see  beyond  it  what  St.  Paul  saw  when  he  said, 
"  I  know  whom  I  have  believed,  and  am  per- 
suaded that  he  is  able  to  keep  that  which  I 
have  committed  unto  him  against  that  day."1 
— "  O  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  O  grave, 
where  is  thy  victory?  The  sting  of  death  is 
sin ;  and  the  strength  of  sin  is  the  law.  But 
thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the  vic- 
tory through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."2  Annul 
that  gospel  of  victory  over  death  by  One  who 
has  taken  away  the  sting  of  sin,  and  what 
remains?  A  certain  fearful  looking-for  of 
judgment;  a  long  vision  of  futurity  with  no 
reasonable  hope  of  escape  from  evil  and  its 
consequences;  a  prospect  of  dying  without 
getting  rid  of  the  disease  which  kills  us. 
"  Now  He  is  Read  again  the  words  of  the  Apostles  after 
you  have  blotted  out  their  gospel  of  the  con- 
quest of  death  by  Christ.  'Through  death 
he  was  destroyed  by  him  that  had  the  power 
of  death,  that  is,  the  devil,  and  brought  no 
deliverance  to  them  who  through  fear  of  death 
were  all  their  lifetime  subject  to  bondage.' 
12  Tim.  i.  12.  2  1  Cor.  xv.  65-57. 


The  Bible  without   Christ  85 

4  God  hath  not  raised  him  up,  neither  were  the 
pains  of  death  loosed,  because  it  was  not  pos- 
sible that  he  should  escape  from  it.'  'The 
enemy  that  shall  never  be  destroyed  is  death.' 
'This  same  Jesus  shall  never  come  again.' 
4  He  liveth  not  to  make  intercession  for  his 
people.'  'Even  as  he  never  was  offered  to 
bear  the  sin  of  many,  so  shall  he  never  again 
appear  without  sin  unto  salvation  to  them  that 
wait  for  him.'  'If  we  believe  not  that  Jesus 
died  and  rose  again,  even  so  them  also  which 
sleep  with  Jesus  will  God  never  bring  with 

him.' 

•\ 

"  Christ  is  not  risen  ! 
Eat,  drink,  and  die,  for  we  are  souls  bereaved ; 

Of  all  the  creatures  under  heaven's  high  cope, 

We  are  most  hopeless,  who  once  had  most  hope, 
And  most  beliefless,  that  had  most  believed. 

Ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust, 

As  of  the  unjust,  also  of  the  just; 

Yea,  of  that  Just  One  too, 

It  is  the  one  sad  Gospel  that  is  true,  — 

Christ  is  not  risen ! " 1 

To  take  Christ  out  of  the  Bible  is  to  make  it   The  Book 
worse  than  useless  to  a  sinful  world.      It  is  to 
make  it  crushing,  disheartening,  terrifying, — 
the  saddest  book  that  was  ever  written.      The 
Old   Testament   casts    upon    us    an   unbroken 

i  A.  H.  Clough,  Easter  Day,  1849. 


86  The  Bible  without  Christ 

shadow  of  gloomy  fate.  The  New  Testament 
pierces  it  with  an  intolerable  light  of  conscious 
guilt  and  coming  judgment. 

The  restore  But  restore  Christ  to  His  place  in  the  Bible, 
an(^  ^  becomes  the  book  of  hope  and  joy.  The 
unbroken  shadow  is  changed  into  the  adum- 
bration of  the  coming  Redeemer :  the  shadow 
Christ1  whose  angel  moves  before  the  strug- 
gling host  of  all  who  will  follow  God's  guidance 
through  the  wilderness  of  sin.  The  intolerable 
light  is  transformed  into  a  blessed  healing 
radiance  :  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Saviour  of  the  world. 

1  The  Shadow  Christ,  an  introduction  to  Christ  Himself, 
By  Gerald  Stanley  Lee.     The  Century  Company. 


IV 


CHRIST'S   MISSION  TO   THE   INNER 
LIFE 


What,  then,  is  the  service  rendered  to  the  world  by 
Christianity?  The  proclamation  of  "good  news."  And 
what  is  this  good  news?  The  pardon  of  sin.  The  God 
of  holiness  loving  the  world  and  reconciling  it  to  Him- 
self by  Jesus,  in  order  to  establish  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
the  city  of  souls,  the  life  of  heaven  upon  earth, — here 
you  have  the  whole  of  it ;  but  in  this  is  a  revolution. 

—  AMIEL'S  Journal,  Jan.  27,  1869. 


IV 


CHRIST'S    MISSION    TO    THE    INNER 
LIFE 

THE  ultimate  mission  of  Christ  was  to  the  A  pro- 
inner  life  of  man. 

His  ministry  there  was  not  in  words  alone, 
but  in  character  and  action  ;  in  what  He  was 
and  what  He  did  for  men  ;  the  heart  of  His 
message  was  Himself,  His  life,  His  death. 

The  central  gospel  of  this  message  is  the 
reality  and  completeness  of  peace  with  God 
through  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 

The  forgiveness  of  sins  brings  with  it  the 
freedom  and  power  of  a  new  inner  life  of  divine 
righteousness. 

These   four   statements   may  serve  to  mark 
out,  in  a  broad  way,  the  line  of  thought  that  I 
wish  to  follow  in  this  chapter. 
89 


90         Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 


The  Kingdom  is  within  You 

The  seat  of        Christ  came  into  the  world  to  proclaim  and 

empire.         establish  the   kingdom   of    God   among  men. 

The  sway  of  that  kingdom  extends  over  every 

region  of  our  life.     But  its  seat  must  be  within 

us. 

It  must  reach  and  reconcile  and  rule  that 
interior  region  of  the  heart  which  lies  behind 
audible  utterance  and  visible  action,  below 
social  ties  and  bonds  of  human  fellowship, 
underneath  conscious  reasonings  and  formu- 
lated theories,  —  that  undiscovered  country 
where  the  moral  sentiments,  the  religious  feel- 
ing, the  sense  of  dependence,  and  the  joy  or 
grief  of  living,  have  their  home. 

The  springs  It  is  there  that  the  real  forces  of  human  life 
of  life.  are  generated.  Man  is  the  one  creature  in  the 
universe  in  whom  the  mechanical  counts  least, 
and  the  spiritual  counts  most.  Not  only  his 
personal  happiness,  but  also  his  actual  power 
and  efficiency  in  the  world  depend  upon  the 
condition  of  his  inner  life.  He  could  not  "  live 
by  bread  alone,"  even  if  he  would.  Every 
phase  of  his  existence  betrays  the  presence  of 
an  energy,  whether  for  good  or  for  evil,  which 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life        91 

is  drawn  from  some  secret  source  deep  within 
him,  and  fed  by  streams  which  flow  far  below 
the  surface  of  his  physical  nature. 

Vitality,  in  man,  is  a  spiritual  force  condi- 
tioned, but  not  created,  by  a  material  embodi- 
ment. A  vitometer  will  never  be  invented, 
because  there  is  no  instrument  delicate  enough 
to  take  the  temperature  of  the  inner  life.  Even 
in  dealing  with  bodily  disease,  the  wise  physi- 
cian, while  he  may  make  his  diagnosis  absolute, 
always  recognizes  an  element  of  uncertainty  in 
his  prognosis.  "While  there  is  life  there  is 
hope,"  he  says.  He  might  add,  "  While  there 
is  hope  there  is  life."  Hope  has  healed  more 
diseases  than  any  medicine. 

The  life  of  man  is  a  demonstrated  daily  mira- 
cle. It  shows  that  the  physical  laws  which  we 
know  and  the  physical  forces  which  we  can 
measure,  are  traversed  by  spiritual  laws  which 
we  do  not  know  and  spiritual  forces  which  we 
cannot  measure.  It  proves  the  reality  and 
potency  of  that  which  is  invisible  and  impon- 
derable. 

The  various  kinds  of  energy  which  are  de-  Spiritual 
veloped  from  heat  are  not  more  real,  nor  more  f°rce8' 
powerful,  than  the  actual  working  force  which 
is   developed   in   the  world  from  love  in  the 
inner  life  of  man.     Gravitation  itself  does  no 


92        Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

more  to  insure  the  stability  of  the  material 
order,  than  inward  peace  of  soul  does  to  main- 
tain the  stability  of  the  social  order.  The 
wind  that  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  is  no 
more  efficient  in  purifying  and  vitalizing  the 
atmosphere,  than  are  the  secret  spiritual  cur- 
rents of  penitence  and  faith  and  aspiration 
which  breathe  through  the  hearts  of  men,  in 
cleansing  and  renewing  the  inner  air  which 
keeps  the  soul  alive. 

Sin  deadens  This  is  the  reason  why  sin  is  a  power  of 
disorder  and  death.  It  is  not  because  it  affects 
the  outer  life,  not  because  it  sows  the  seeds  of 
physical  corruption  and  decay,  not  because  it 
brings  forth  crimes  of  violence  and  destruction. 
It  is  because  it  pervades  the  inner  life,  because 
it  poisons  the  streams  of  human  existence  at 
the  fountain-head,  because  it  paralyzes  the 
vital  energies  of  humanity. 

Sin  is  a  separating,  secluding,  imprisoning 
power  which  shuts  the  soul  off  from  the  purify- 
ing breath  of  the  divine  Spirit  and  leaves  it  in 
a  dungeon,  to  breathe  the  same  air  over  and 
over  again  until  it  is  smothered.  Sin  is  a 
rebellious,  turbulent,  tormenting  power  which 
destroys  the  inward  peace  of  the  soul,  agitates 
it  with  restless  passion,  tortures  it  with  haunt- 
ing fear.  Sin  is  a  selfish,  envious,  hateful 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life       93 

power  which  takes  the  very  life  out  of  love 
and  makes  it  impotent  for  good,  a  vain  dream 
never  to  be  realized,  a  beautiful,  ineffectual 
ghost. 

The  supreme  directness,  the  triumphant  sim-  Jesus  kneu 
plicity  of  Jesus  as  the  restorer  of  humanity  to  *^0^r°^ 
its  true  order  and  the  bringer  of  a  new  king- 
dom into  the  world,  came  from  the  clearness 
with  which  He  saw  that  the  world's  chief 
trouble  and  man's  deepest  need  lie  in  the  inner 
life.  He  wasted  no  strength  in  polishing  the 
outside  of  the  cups  and  platters  on  which 
man's  exterior  wants  are  served.  He  spent 
no  time  in  whitening  sepulchres.  He  knew 
that  the  seat  of  real  goodness  and  permanent 
happiness  and  divine  harmony  must  be  in  the 
inner  life.  The  incomparable  service  to  man- 
kind which  was  to  give  Him  the  eternal  chief- 
taincy in  the  spiritual  life,  was  a  service  to  the 
soul. 

There  can  be  no  real  empire  of  peace  unless  He  sought 
this  deepest  region  is  reached.     There  must  be 
no  nook  or  corner  or  crevice  of  man's  life  left 
unexplored,  unsubdued,  unreconciled  ;  no  lurk- 
ing-place of  rebellion  ;  no  fountain  of  discord ; 

"  little  rift  within  the  lute, 
That  by  and  by  will  make  the  music  mute, 
And  ever  widening  slowly  silence  all." 


94        Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

The  kingdom  must  go  in  to  the  centre  and 
down  to  the  bottom  of  personality,  and  work 
from  within  outward,  —  from  below  upward. 
This  was  the  programme  of  Christ ;  and  to 
carry  it  out  He  directed  His  journey  to  the 
inner  life  of  man. 

Blessings  by  On  the  way  thither,  like  a  prince  in  progress, 
He  conferred  inestimable  gifts  and  blessings 
in  the  outer  circles  of  human  existence.  The 
doctrine  of  Jesus  has  widened  the  thoughts  of 
men.  The  example  of  Jesus  has  crystallized 
the  moral  aspirations  of  men  into  a  flawless 
and  imperishable  ideal.  The  precept  of  Jesus 
has  struck  the  keynote  for  a  new  harmony  of 
human  fellowship.  The  influence  of  Jesus  has 
given  inspiration  and  guidance  to  philosophy 
and  literature  and  the  fine  arts. 

The  inward       But  as  we  follow  Him  through  these  regions 
quest.  we  are  ma(je  aware  that  He  is  pressing  inward 

to  a  goal  beyond.  He  seeks  the  thinker,  we 
say,  behind  the  thought;  the  person,  behind 
the  social  order.  He  aims  to  elevate  man  by 
uplifting  men.  His  mission  is  not  to  masses, 
nor  to  classes;  it  is  to  the  individual.  But 
when  He  finds  the  individual,  as  a  thinker,  as  a 
social  unit,  what  then  ?  Still  Christ  seems  to 
press  inward,  to  seek  a  yet  deeper  point. 

His  mission  to  society  is  through  the  indi- 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life        95 

vidual.  But  when  we  have  said  that,  we  have 
not  yet  said  all.  His  mission  to  the  individual 
is  through  the  inner  life.  He  has  not  arrived 
at  the  goal  of  His  journey,  He  has  not  spoken 
the  last  word  of  His  message  until  He  has  said 
to  the  paralytic,  "  Son,  be  of  good  cheer,  thy 
sins  are  forgiven  thee  "  ;  and  to  the  woman  of 
Syro-Phoenicia,  "  Go  in  peace "  ;  and  to  the 
disciples,  "  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled  " ; 
and  to  all  the  weary  and  heavy-laden,  "  Come 
unto  me,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your 
souls." 

The  kingdom  of  God  which  Jesus  proclaims  A  kingdom 
and  establishes  is  a  kingdom  of  the  soul.     Its  °fthesoul- 
deepest  meaning  is  a  personal  experience.     Its 
essence  is  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in 
the  Holy  Ghost.     Its  dwelling-place  and  seat 
of  power  is  in  the  inner  life. 


96        Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

n 

The  Picture  of  Jesus  in  the  Soul 

The  imprint  If  this  be  true,  it  is  perfectly  natural,  and 
of  Chnst.  altogether  reasonable,  that  the  earliest  and  clear- 
est and  most  enduring  manifestation  of  Christ 
should  be  in  this  region  of  man's  inmost  being. 
The  impress  of  His  character  should  be  deepest 
upon  the  sub-liminal  self.  The  traces  of  His 
presence  in  the  world  should  be  most  distinct 
and  most  indelible  in  the  records  of  ^spiritual 
experience.  The  evidences  of  His  healing,  puri- 
fying, harmonizing,  saving  power  should  be 
found  first  and  most  abundantly  in  those  under- 
lying relations,  those  mysterious  sentiments  and 

propensities,  — 

"  those  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings ; 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized, 
High  instincts  before  which  our  mortal  Nature 
Doth  tremble  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised: 
Those  first  affections, 
Those  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day." 

And  so  in  fact  we  find  it  to  be.     The  image 
of   Jesus  comes  to  light,  first   of  all,  in   the 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life       97 

spiritual  experience  of  man.  The  earliest  and 
the  most  wonderful  picture  of  Him  is  simply  a 
living  reflection  of  Him  in  man's  inner  life. 

Before  we  can  discern  any  influence  of  His  As  many 
teaching,  as  a  great  reformer,  upon  the  institu-  ^^ceive( 
tions  of  society;  before  we  can  perceive  any 
effect  of  those  large,  simple  truths  which  He 
brought  to  light,  upon  the  orderly  thinking  of 
the  world;  before  we  can  trace  the  rudest 
beginnings  of  Christian  art,  the  most  ancient 
formulas  of  Christian  worship,  the  earliest  foun- 
dations of  Christian  temples ;  yes,  even  before 
we  can  find  any  narrative  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
any  collection  of  His  sayings,  any  record  of 
His  deeds, —  first  of  all,  and  most  vivid  of  all, 
we  see  the  person  of  Jesus  printed  upon  the 
hearts  and  revealed  in  the  letters  of  certain  men 
who  loved  and  trusted  and  adored  Him  as  their 
Saviour  from  sin. 

Asa  matter  of  fact,  the  Epistles  come  before  The  Epistles 
the  Gospels.     I  do  not  say  they  are  any  more  ** the 
authentic,  any  more  precious,  than  the  Gospels. 
I  do  not  say  they  are  ever  to  be  read  or  inter- 
preted apart  from  the  Gospels.     But  I  say  they 
are  forever  sacred  and  authoritative  to  all  Chris- 
tian hearts,  because  they  are  the  place  where  we 
first  catch  sight  of  Jesus  Christ  in  this  world. 
And  their  personal  testimony,  their  peculiar  sig- 


98         Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 


Christ  their 
theme. 


Their  wit- 
ness to  His 
power. 


nificance,  their  religious  meaning,  must  never 
be  forgotten  or  denied,  if  we  want  to  know 
what  Christ  came  to  do,  and  what  Christ  really 
did,  for  the  life  of  man. 

For  what  are  these  Epistles  ?  They  are  not 
formal  treatises  of  theology,  of  ethics,  of  church 
government.  They  are  simply  transcripts  of 
the  spiritual  experience  of  real  men, — St.  Peter 
and  St.  Paul  and  St.  John,  and  perhaps  some 
others  whose  names  we  do  not  know. 

No  one  can  doubt  that  the  centre  of  these 
letters  is  Jesus  Christ.  He  is  their  theme  and 
their  inspiration,  their  impulse  and  their  aim. 
They  are  written  in  His  name.  They  bear  wit- 
ness to  His  power,  they  glow  with  His  praise. 
They  are,  first  of  all,  and  most  of  all,  evidences 
of  the  place  which  Jesus  held  in  the  inner  life 
of  these  men,  testimonies  to  the  change  which 
He  wrought  in  their  souls,  —  a  change  so  great, 
so  deep,  so  joyful,  that  it  was  like  a  new  birth, 
a  veritable  passing  from  death  unto  life.  Listen 
to  a  description  of  this  change,  in  words  as  fresh 
and  glowing  as  if  they  had  been  written  but 
yesterday :  — 

"Therefore  if  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is 
a  new  creature :  old  things  are  passed  away  ; 
behold,  all  things  are  become  new.  And  all 
things  are  of  God,  who  hath  reconciled  us  to 


Chrises  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life        99 

himself  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  hath  given  to  us 
the  ministry  of  reconciliation;  to  wit,  that 
God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto 
himself,  not  imputing  their  trespasses  unto 
them ;  and  hath  committed  unto  us  the  word 
of  reconciliation.  Now  then  we  are  ambas- 
sadors for  Christ,  as  though  God  did  beseech 
you  by  us :  we  pray  you  in  Christ's  stead,  be 
ye  reconciled  to  God.  For  he  hath  made  him  to 
be  sin  for  us,  who  knew  no  sin ;  that  we  might 
be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  him." 

This  is  an  authentic  description  of  the  mis-  The  original 
sion  of  Christ  to  the  inner  life  of  man.  This  is 
a  reflection  of  what  He  really  effected  in  the 
secret  place  of  the  human  heart.  This  is  the 
voice  of  that  new  tide  of  peace  which  silently 
rose  through  man's  experience,  — 

"  One  common  wave  of  thought  and  joy 
Lifting  mankind  again." 

This  is  the  original  gospel,  which  began  to  win 
the  world  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  and  has 
never  ceased  to  spread  from  heart  to  heart, 
from  land  to  land,  like  music  mixed  with  light. 
And  it  is  the  faithful  and  persistent  witness 
to  this  experience,  more  than  anything  else, 
that  has  made  Christianity  a  world-religion. 
A  changed  heart,  uttering  its  new-found  fe- 


100       Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 


A  joyful 
change. 


What  did  it 
meant 


licity  in  sweet  and  searching  tones,  —  this  is 
the  miracle  that  has  drawn  the  attention  of 
men,  century  after  century,  to  the  teachings 
of  Christianity. 

Its  apostles  won  their  way  chiefly  by  the 
evidence  which  they  gave  that  something  had 
happened  within  them  to  transform  their  life 
at  the  fountain-head.  The  sense  of  newness 
in  their  souls  was  the  source  of  their  power. 
Whenever  this  sense  of  newness  has  faded  and 
grown  dim,  the  self -propagating  force  of  Chris- 
tianity has  waned.  Whenever  this  sense  of 
newness  has  been  deep  and  vivid,  Christianity 
has  advanced  swiftly  and  found  a  wide  wel- 
come. Its  most  potent  argument  has  been  this 
simple  and  direct  testimony  to  the  pacification 
and  renewal  of  the  inner  life  by  the  accept- 
ance of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Saviour. 

I  am  not  concerned  at  present  to  justify  it, 
to  defend  it,  to  argue  for  its  truth  or  its  mo- 
rality, to  find  a  place  for  it  in  a  system  of 
theology  or  philosophy.  What  I  want  to  do 
is  just  to  tell  what  it  was;  to  show  what  it 
meant  to  the  men  who  received  it ;  to  look  at 
it,  not  as  a  theory,  not  as  a  doctrine,  but  as  a 
spiritual  experience ;  to  let  the  inner  life  speak 
for  itself  about  what  Christ  has  done  for  the 
souls  of  those  who  have  believed  on  Him. 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      101 

m 

Peace  with  God  through  Christ 
That   Christ's  mission  was  one  of  joy  and  Theglad- 


peace  needs  no  proof.     The  New  Testament 

Christianity 

is  a  book  that  throbs  and  glows  with  inexpres- 
sible gladness.  It  is  the  one  bright  spot  in 
the  literature  of  the  first  century.  The  Chris- 
tians were  the  happiest  people  in  the  world. 
Poor,  they  were  rich  ;  persecuted,  they  were 
exultant  ;  martyred,  they  were  victorious.  The 
secret  of  Jesus,  as  they  knew  it,  was  a  blessed 
secret.  It  filled  them  with  the  joy  of  living. 
Their  watchword  was,  "  Rejoice  and  be  exceed- 
ing glad." 

But  what  were  the  elements  of  that  joy? 
What  was  it  that  had  entered  into  their  inner 
life  thus  £o  transform  and  illuminate  it  ? 

To  answer  this  question  fully  would  be  to  Salvation. 
give  a  summary  of  the  primitive  records  of 
Christianity.  All  the  manifold  aspects  of  hu- 
man existence  were  affected,  unmistakably  and 
immediately,  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the 
Son  of  God  and  the  Saviour  of  men.  Those 
who  received  Him  thus  into  their  hearts  felt 
that  they  were  saved.  And  if  one  had  asked 
them  from  what  they  were  saved,  doubtless 


102      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

they  would  have  wondered  at  the  question,  and 
would  have  answered,  "  From  everything  that 
brings  trouble  and  fear  and  anguish  and  death 
into  our  souls." 
AH  things          The  world  looked  to  them  like  a  new  place, 

made  new.      and    thev    felt     ^    new    men>        Sorrow    was 

changed.  Instead  of  a  hopeless  burden  of 
affliction,  it  had  become  the  means  of  working 
out  for  them  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal 
weight  of  glory.  Death  was  changed.  In- 
stead of  a  gloomy  shadow  enveloping  the  end 
of  all  things,  it  had  become  the  gateway  into 
a  world  of  light.  Duty  was  changed.  Instead 
of  an  impossible  compliance  with  an  inexora- 
ble law,  it  had  become  a  new  obedience  with 
divine  help  to  accomplish  it.  They  felt  that 
they  had  received  power  in  the  inner  life  to 
become  the  sons  of  God.  And  the  chief  ele- 
ment in  this  power,  according  to  their  own 
testimony,  was  the  sense  of  deliverance  from 
the  weight,  the  curse,  the  condemnation  of 
their  sins,  through  the  work  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

It  is  of  this  strange  and  wonderful  feeling 
of  salvation  from  sin  that  I  wish  to  speak 
more  particularly,  not  as  a  doctrine,  not  as  a 
theory,  but  as  an  actual  fact  brought  by  Christ 
into  the  inner  life  of  man. 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      103 

1.    The  normal   Christian  experience,  as   it  Sin  taken 
is   expressed   by   those  who  stand  nearest   to  away' 
Christ,   utters   itself,   first   of   all,   as   a   great 
sense   of  peace  with  God  through  something 
which   Christ    has    done    to   sweep   away   the 
barrier    of   sin   between   the  human   and   the 
divine. 

Nowhere  else  in  the  world  do  we  find  such 
a  deep  and  keen  sense  of  sin,  and  of  its  three 
deadly  facts,  as  Henry  Drummond  calls  them, 
—  its  power,  its  stain,  and  its  guilt ;  nowhere 
else  in  the  world  do  we  find  these  facts  so 
clearly  recognized,  so  profoundly  felt,  as  in 
the  New  Testament. 

In  many  of  our  modern  religious  writers  this 
sense  of  sin  seems  to  be  a  vanishing  quantity. 
Mr.  Gladstone  says:  "They  appear  to  have 
a  very  low  estimate  both  of  the  quantity  and 
the  quality  of  sin ;  of  its  amount,  spread  like 
a  deluge  over  the  world,  and  of  the  subtlety, 
intensity,  and  virulence  of  its  nature."1  It  is 
chiefly  in  the  secular  writers,  the  dramatists 
like  Ibsen,  the  novelists  like  Hardy,  that  we 
find  a  full  and  clear  recognition  of  the  facts 
of  moral  evil  to-day.  And  they  offer  no 
remedy,  give  no  hope. 

But  when  we  turn  back  to  the  New  Testa- 
1  W.  E.  Gladstone,  Later  Gleanings,  p.  114. 


104      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

ment  we  come  into  touch  with  men  who  faced 
the  facts,  and,  at  the  same  time,  felt  that  they 
had  found  the  cure. 

The  deep-  Nothing  that  Jesus  said  or  did,  led  His 
disciples  to  minimize  or  disregard  sin,  to  cover 
it  up  with  flowers,  to  transform  it  into  a  mere 
defect  or  mistake,  to  deny  its  reality  and 
explain  it  away,  to  say 

"  The  evil  is  naught,  is  null,  is  silence  implying  sound." 

The  whole  effect  of  His  mission,  whatever  form 
it  may  have  taken,  whatever  its  teaching  may 
have  been,  —  its  undeniable  effect  was  to  inten- 
sify and  deepen  the  consciousness  of  sin  as  a 
fatal  thing  from  which  men  must  needs  be  saved 
"  This  is  the  condemnation,"  says  St.  John, 
"that  light  is  come  into  the  world,  and  men 
loved  darkness  rather  than  light,  because  their 
deeds  were  evil."1  "All  have  sinned  and 
come  short  of  the  glory  of  God,"  says  St. 
Paul;  "death  passed  upon  all  men,  for  that 
all  have  sinned."  2  "  For  whosoever  shall  keep 
the  whole  law,"  says  St.  James,  "and  yet 
offend  in  one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all."3  "If 
we  say  we  have  not  sinned,"  says  St.  John,  "  we 
make  God  a  liar  and  his  truth  is  not  in  us."4 

i  John  iii.  19.  «  James  ii.  10. 

8  Rom.  v.  12.  *  1  John  i.  10. 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      105 

But   with   this    overwhelming   sense   of    sin   The  perfect 
which  Christ  brought  into  the  inner  life,  He  release- 
brought  also  an  equally  great  and  deep  sense 
of  deliverance  from  it. 

"There  is  therefore  now  no  condemnation 
to  them  that  are  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk 
not  after  the  flesh  but  after  the  Spirit."1 
"And  you,  being  dead  in  your  sins,  hath  he 
quickened  together  with  him,  having  forgiven 
you  all  trespasses."2  If  any  man  "have  com- 
mitted sins,  they  shall  be  forgiven  unto  him."  3 
"  I  write  unto  you,  little  children,  because 
your  sins  are  forgiven  you  for  his  name's 
sake."4 

Now  it  is  an  extraordinary  thing  that  men 
should  speak  thus,  in  one  breath  condemning 
themselves  and  in  the  next  breath  declaring 
their  freedom  from  condemnation.  And  when 
we  come  to  look  into  this  strange  utterance 
of  the  inner  life,  we  find  that  it  flows  from 
a  twofold  experience. 

2.    First  of  all,  there  is  a  profound,  unalter-   Thecer- 
able  conviction  that  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus 
Christ  are  an  expression  of  the  forgiving  love 
of   God   toward   man.     The  old  idea  of  God 
as  a  stern,  angry,  revengeful   being,  demand- 

1  Rom.  viii.  1.  «  James  v.  16. 

2  Col.  ii.  13.  *  1  John  ii.  12. 


106      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

ing  and  delighting  in  the  death  of  the  sinner, 
has  vanished  from  the  inner  life  of  the  true 
Christian.  Somehow  Christ  has  blotted  it  out. 
Somehow  the  Christian  knows  that  God  is 
love.  And  if  we  ask  how  he  knows  it,  the 
answer  is,  that  the  only  begotten  Son  came 
forth  from  the  bosom  of  the  Father  to  reveal 
Him.  "Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved 
God,  but  that  he  loved  us,  and  sent  his  Son 
to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins."1  "God 
•  commendeth  his  love  toward  us,  in  that  while 
we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us."2  All 
the  meaning  of  Christ's  life  and  death,  with 
us  and  for  us,  hangs  upon  His  being  the  true 
Son  of  God,  the  word  of  God,  the  brightness 
of  the  Father's  glory  and  the  express  image 
of  His  person.3  It  is  this  that  makes  us  sure 
that  God  is  not  a  fierce,  vindictive,  relentless 
God.  He  is  more  than  a  ruler,  a  judge  of  all 
the  earth,  an  almighty  king.  He  is  our  friend, 
the  lover  of  our  souls.  He  is  willing  to  live 
among  us,  to  suffer  with  us,  to  die  for  us. 
Christ  one  The  entire  significance  of  Christ  as  a  reve- 
ller6 lation  of  divine  Love  depends  upon  His  real 
oneness  with  the  Father,  and  the  essential  vol- 
untariness  of  His  sacrifice.  It  is  not  a  punish- 

1 1  John  iv.  10.  2  Rom.  v.  8. 

8  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  pp.  105,  120. 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      107 

ment  inflicted  from  without,  by  the  inexorable 
law  of  God.  It  is  a  revelation  made  from 
within,  by  the  immeasurable  love  of  God, 
showing  mercy  at  the  heart  of  righteousness. 

The  faith  in  Christ's  divinity  underlies  the 
faith  in  His  sacrifice  as  an  expression  of  the 
kindness  of  God's  heart.  It  could  not  speak 
to  us  of  the  love  of  God  unless  the  love  of  God 
were  in  it.  Love  is  the  light  within  the  lan- 
tern. There  would  be  no  colour  in  the  glass, 
the  figure  of  the  crucifix  would  be  black  and 
indistinguishable,  if  it  were  not  transfigured 
by  that  inner  radiance. 

The  love   of   God  goes   before  the  gift  of  Love  the 
Christ.     "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  Precedent- 
his  only  begotten  Son."     He  did  not  give  His 
only  begotten  Son  in  order  that  He  might  learn 
to  love  the  world. 

The  love  was  expressed  not  only  in  the  life, 
it  was  summed  up  and  crowned  in  the  death,  of 
Christ.  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this, 
that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends." 
Greater  love  hath  no  god  than  this.  Love's 
consummation  is  the  cross. 

It  is  not  intended  to  produce  a  change  in 
the  mind  of  God.  It  is  intended  to  show  what 
is  already  in  the  mind  of  God.  It  is  not 
designed  to  make  Him  feel  differently  toward 


108       Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

men.  It  is  designed  to  reveal  what  He  has 
always  felt.  It  is  not  love's  manufacture.  It 
is  love's  disclosure. 

Forgiveness  Men  say  that  repentance  is  the  condition  of 
f°rgiveness-  Onty  ^et  a  man  repent  of  his  sin, 
only  let  him  be  sorry  for  it,  and  hate  it,  and 
turn  to  God,  crying  for  pardon,  and  he  shall  be 
forgiven.  This  is  a  glorious,  an  inspiring  view 
of  the  readiness  of  divine  mercy. 

But  the  picture  of  Jesus  in  the  soul,  as  it  is 
drawn  in  the  New  Testament,  goes  far  beyond 
the  glory  of  this  thought.  It  shows  us  that 
in  Christ  forgiveness  is  the  creator  of  repent- 
ance. God  is  ready  to  forgive  long  before  man 
is  ready  to  repent.  God  gives  His  Son  to  die 
for  us  while  we  are  yet  sinners.  At  the  heart 
of  the  gift  lies  the  desire  to  make  us  sorry  for 
our  sins.  "  The  goodness  of  God  leadeth  thee 
to  repentance."1  To  forgive  is  divine;  that 
comes  first.  To  repent  is  human ;  that  follows 
afterward. 

Christ  did  I*1  a^  the  New  Testament  I  can  find  no  trace 
not  make  of  the  idea  that  Christ  did  anything,  or  needed 
world.  *°  do  anything,  to  make  God  love  the  world. 

There  is  a  noble  passage  in   the  works   of 
St.  Augustine,  which  sets  forth  the  true  image 
of  Christ  as  the  expression  of  God's  readiness 
i  Rom.  ii.  4. 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life     109 

to  forgive  sins.  "What  is  meant,"  he  asks, 
"by  4  being  reconciled  by  the  death  of  his 
Son '  ?  Was  it,  indeed,  so  that  when  God  the 
Father  was  angry  with  us  He  saw  the  death  of 
His  Son,  and  was  appeased?  Was,  then,  the 
Son  already  so  appeased  toward  us  that  He 
was  willing  to  die  for  us;  while  the  Father 
was  so  angry  that  unless  the  Son  had  died  He 
would  not  have  been  appeased  ?  What  does  it 
mean,  then,  when  the  same  teacher  of  the  Gen- 
tiles says,  in  another  place,  4  What  shall  we  say 
to  these  things?  If  God  be  for  us,  who  can 
be  against  us?  He  that  spared  not  his  own 
Son  but  freely  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how 
has  he  not  with  him  also  freely  given  us  all 
things  ? '  Unless  the  Father  had  been  already 
appeased,  would  He  have  delivered  up  His  own 
Son,  not  sparing  Him  for  us  ?  Is  there  not  a 
contradiction  between  these  two  views  ?  In 
the  former  the  Son  dies  for  us,  and  the  Father 
is  reconciled  by  His  death.  In  the  latter  the 
Father,  as  if  out  of  love  for  us,  does  not  spare 
the  Son,  but  Himself,  for  our  sake,  delivers 
Him  up  to  death.  But  I  see  that  the  Father 
loved  us  beforehand,  —  not  only  before  the  Son 
died,  but  also  before  the  world  was  created, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  the  Apostle  who 
says,  'He  hath  chosen  us  in  him  before  the 


110      Christ" s  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 


God's  love 
antedates 
atonement. 


The  neces- 
sity of 
sacrifice. 


foundation  of  the  world.'  Nor  was  the  Son 
unwillingly  offered,  for  it  is  said  of  Him,  c  Who 
loved  me,  and  gave  himself  for  me.'  There- 
fore together,  both  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
arid  the  Spirit  of  both,  work  all  things  at  the 
same  tune  equally  and  harmoniously;  yet  we 
are  justified  in  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  we  are 
reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  His  Son."1 

So  stands  the  picture  of  Christ  the  mediator, 
the  reconciler,  as  it  is  reflected  in  the  soul  of 
those  who  first  trusted  in  Him. 

His  atonement  does  not  reconcile  God  to  the 
world.  No  need  of  that.  God  has  loved  the 
world  forever. 

It  does  reconcile  the  world  to  God.  Great 
need  of  that.  For  it  breaks  down  the  barrier 
of  fear  and  mistrust ;  it  rends  the  veil  of  dread- 
ful dreams  that  sin  has  woven  before  the  divine 
face,  and  discloses  the  countenance  of  a  pitying, 
forgiving  Father ;  it  moves  men  to  repentance 
by  the  mightiest  force  of  mercy ;  it  binds  men 
to  holy  living  by  the  enduring  bonds  of  grati- 
tude and  love. 

3.  But  could  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  have 
meant  this  much  to  the  inner  life  of  man  unless 
it  had  also  meant  something  more  ?  Suppose  for 
a  moment  that  the  disciples  had  thought  that  it 

1  Augustine,  De  Trinitate,  Book  XIII.  ch.  xi. 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      111 

was  not  really  a  necessary  sacrifice ;  that  there 
was  no  reason  why  He  should  suffer,  except 
perhaps  that  His  sufferings  might  move  their 
hearts ;  that  His  death  was  nothing  more  than 
the  accidental  consequence  of  His  being  entan- 
gled in  a  world  like  this  ;  that  God  could  have 
forgiven  sin  and  would  have  forgiven  sin  in  just 
the  same  way  if  there  had  been  no  crucifixion 
on  Calvary.  What  then?  Would  Christ  still 
have  had  the  same  atoning  power  to  draw  their 
hearts  to  God  ? 

It  is  love  that  reconciles.     And  it  is  self-  Love  aiway* 
sacrifice  that  reveals  love.     But  does  an  un-  serviceable- 
necessary  sacrifice,  a  useless  sacrifice,  reveal  love 
in  a  way  that  moves  and  compels  our  hearts? 

No,  the  moment  we  perceive  that  an  offered 
proof  of  love  has  no  relation  to  our  real  needs, 
and  is  not  intended  to  do  us  any  real  good,  it 
loses  its  power  upon  us,  becomes  unreal  and 
futile.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  you  are 
rowing  a  boat  on  a  river,  in  no  danger  of  any 
kind.  A  friend  comes  down  to  the  shore  and 
hails  you ;  he  tells  you  that  he  is  about  to 
show  his  devotion  to  you  in  a  way  that  you 
cannot  possibly  doubt.  He  intends  to  give 
his  life  for  you.  So  he  throws  himself  into 
the  water  and  is  drowned.  Are  you  impressed 
with  gratitude  and  love?  Is  the  proof  of  de- 


112       Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

votion  so  manifest  and  indubitable  that  you 
cannot  resist  it?  Does  it  not  seem  more  like 
a  vain  show  of  heroism,  a  display  made  not  so 
much  for  your  sake  as  for  the  sake  of  him  who 
made  it? 

But  if  your  boat  had  been  sinking?  Ah, 
then  it  would  have  been  another  matter. 
The  man  who  gives  up  his  life  to  rescue  you 
from  an  actual  peril,  commands  your  love  be- 
cause he  is  your  saviour.  The  crown  of  love  is 
service.  The  glory  of  sacrifice  is  usefulness. 
The  love  of  Christ,  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  draw 
their  deepest  power  upon  the  inner  life  of  man 
from  the  conviction  they  really  have  accom- 
plished a  deliverance  for  sinners  from  the  guilt 
and  curse  and  doom  of  sin. 

The  inter-          The  first  message  that  the  disciples  received 
pretattonof   from  foe  risen  Jesus,  while  their  minds  were 

the  Cross. 

still  overwhelmed  by  the  apparent  tragedy  of 
the  crucifixion,  was  the  truth  that  it  was  not  a 
useless  loss,  but  a  fruitful  gain.  The  subject 
of  His  conversation  with  the  two  sad-hearted 
Christians  on  the  road  to  Emmaus,  —  sad  be- 
cause they  could  not  see  why  it  was  necessary 
for  Christ  to  die, — the  theme  of  His  talk  with 
them  was  the  need  of  His  death.  "Ought  not 
Christ  to  have  suffered  these  things  and  to 
have  entered  into  His  glory  ?  " 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life     113 

How  much  the  first  Apostles,  who  had  been  The  tragedy 
with  Jesus  from  the  beginning,  who  had  loved  on  'ary' 
Him  and  trusted  that  He  was  the  promised 
Redeemer  of  Israel,  —  how  much  these  men 
needed  this  gospel  of  a  real  victory  in  His 
death,  we  who  have  always  heard  it,  even 
though  we  may  not  have  believed  in  it,  can 
hardly  realize.  Think  what  it  must  have 
meant  to  see  the  holy  and  loving  Master  die 
upon  the  cross.  What  a  crushing  catastrophe, 
what  an  inexplicable  tragedy,  what  an  irrepara- 
ble loss  for  the  world  I  How  was  it  possible  to 
have  any  trust  in  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of 
a  God  who  would  permit  such  a  cruel  disaster  ? 
How  was  it  possible  to  have  any  hope  for  a 
humanity  which  had  no  other  use  for  the  per- 
fect life  than  to  blot  it  out  in  anguish  and 
disgrace?  Faith  itself  must  have  died  with 
Christ,  unless  it  had  been  able  to  discover  a 
meaning,  a  purpose,  a  necessity,  a  triumph  in 
His  death  great  enough  to  make  it  the  accom- 
plishment of  all  that  He  had  lived  for.  A  bit- 
ter waste,  or  an  unspeakable  gain  :  those  were 
the  alternatives  in  the  cross. 

One  would  think  that  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ's 
while  He  was  with  the  disciples  had  been  clear 
enough  to  show  them  which  was  the  true  ex-  death. 
planation.     He  had   spoken   of   His   death  as 


114      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

inevitable  ;  He  had  moved  forward  to  it  as  the 
fulfilment  of  His  mission  ;  He  had  interpreted 
it  as  an  infinite  benefit  to  His  disciples.  "  The 
Son  of  man  came  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for 
many."  "The  bread  that  I  will  give  is  my 
flesh,  which  I  will  give  for  the  life  of  the 
world."  "Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone ;  but  if  it  die, 
it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit."  "I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me."  "This  cup  is 
the  New  Covenant  in  my  blood  which  is  shed 
for  many  for  the  remission  of  sins." 

The  doubts  But  the  meaning  of  these  words  was  withheld 
°disciles  from  their  eyes.  They  did  not  dare,  they  were 
not  willing,  to  look  the  fact  of  Christ's  coming 
death  in  the  face,  as  He  did.  So  its  signifi- 
cance escaped  them.  It  needed  the  lifting  up 
of  the  cross,  it  needed  the  vision  of  the  Master's 
death,  to  make  them  realize  the  true  alternative. 
The  aiterna-  On  Calvary  all  was  lost,  —  unless,  on  Calvary 
all  was  won !  The  disciples  stood  between 
utter  despair  and  immeasurable  hope.  The 
risen  Lord  came  back  to  tell  them  that  all 
was  won  by  the  needful  sacrifice  of  the  cross. 
That  is  the  testimony  of  the  first  Apostles. 

Paul's  testimony  comes  out  of  a  different 
experience  but  leads  to  the  same  result.  He 
had  been  an  unbeliever  in  Jesus,  a  hater  and 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      115 

a  persecutor  of  the  Nazarene.     To  him  the  man  Paul's 
of  Nazareth  had  appeared  as  a  false   prophet,  exPenence- 
a  blasphemer.     He   found   no   fault   with  the 
death  of   Jesus  from  that  point  of  view.     It 
was    not    only   necessary ;    it    was    desirable. 
Paul  would  have  willingly  consented  to  it,  if 
he  had  been   in   the  palace  of   Caiaphas,  and 
in   the   judgment-hall   of    Pilate,  and    on  the 
hill  called  Golgotha. 

But  when  Paul  was  overwhelmingly  con- 
vinced that  he  was  wrong  in  his  judgment  of 
the  Nazarene,  his  old  point  of  view  was  utterly 
destroyed. 

From  the  eternal  moment  on  the  Damascus   The  changed 
road  when  Paul  saw  that  the  crucified  Jesus  P°mt°f 

view. 

whom  he  had  been  persecuting  was  not  a  nere- 
tic  Jew,  justly  slain  for  his  blasphemies,  but 
the  true  and  living  Christ  of  God, — from  that 
moment  it  became  absolutely  necessary  for  him 
to  find  a  new  interpretation  of  the  cross.  He 
never  dreamed  that  it  could  be  regarded  as 
a  mere  incident,  a  needless  sacrifice,  a  dis- 
astrous close  of  a  beautiful  life.  It  must  be 
an  essential  element,  an  indispensable  factor 
in  the  mission  of  the  Messiah.  It  must  com- 
plete the  revelation  of  God  which  was  made 
in  Him.  It  must  be  the  corner-stone  of  that 
divine  kingdom  which  He  came  to  establish. 


116      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

The  start-          This  was  the  starting-point  of  Paul's  theol- 

°SY'  While  he  thought  tliat  Jesus  was  not 
the  Christ,  he  saw  in  the  death  on  the  cross 

nothing  but  the  punishment  of  the  folly  and 
falsehood  of  the  Nazarene.  As  soon  as  he 
was  convinced  that  Jesus  really  was  the  Christ, 
the  death  on  the  cross  was  transformed  into 
the  revelation  of  the  righteousness  and  love  of 
God.  There  was  no  other  alternative.  The 
sinless  one,  the  glorious  one,  did  not  die  for 
sins  of  His  own.  He  could  not  have  died  in 
vain.  Therefore  He  must  have  died  for  us. 
God  was  manifest  in  Him  reconciling  the  world 
unto  Himself. 

The  Chris-         This  was  certainly  the  interpretation  which 
tian  view  of  the  Christians  put  upon  the  death  of  their  holy 

the  cross.  x  J 

Lord  and  Master  on  the  cross.     This  was  the 

effect  that  it  actually  wrought  in  their  inner 
life.  They  did  not  deem  it  an  accident,  nor  a 
catastrophe.  It  was  not  the  defeat,  nor  merely 
the  termination,  of  His  work.  It  was  the 
crown  and  consummation  of  His  work.  It 
gave  Christ  to  them  more  than  it  took  Him 
from  them.  They  did  not  think  that  He  died 
for  naught.  His  death  for  sinners  was  the 
greatest  service  that  love  could  perform.  It 
accomplished  and  declared  God's  righteousness 
in  the  remission  of  sins  that  are  past.  It  made 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      111 

it  possible  for  God  to  be  just  and  the  justifier 
of  him  which  believeth  in  Jesus. 

The  Apostles  did  not  teach  that  forgiveness 
could  not  have  taken  place  without  the  cruci- 
fixion of  Christ.  They  kept  within  the  horizon 
of  experience.  They  testified  of  what  they 
knew,  and  bore  witness  of  what  they  had  seen. 

They  simply  taught  that,  without  the  death  The  effe-ct 
of  Christ,  forgiveness  would  not  have  been  °/e^lsts 
what  it  is.  They  taught  it  because  they  felt 
it.  They  did  not  dream  that  the  tragedy  of 
the  cross  made  any  change  in  God.  But  they 
were  sure  that  it  made  a  change  in  the  relation 
of  the  sinful  world  to  God.  It  took  away  the 
curse  of  the  law.  It  blotted  out  the  hand- 
writing of  ordinances.  It  redeemed  us.  It 
brought  us  near  to  God.  It  put  away  sin.  It 
cleansed  us  from  sin  in  the  blood  of  Christ. 
It  is  the  one  offering  by  which  Christ  hath 
perfected  them  that  are  sanctified. 

Now,  what  were  the  secret  laws  and  what  The  hidden 
were  the  mysterious  relations  of  the  world  to 
God  which  made  this  offering  of  the  sinless  life 
of  Jesus  necessary  for  the  rescue  of  mankind 
from  sin,  no  man  knoweth,  nor  can  any  man 
explain  them  and  set  them  in  order.  But  their 
existence  does  not  depend  upon  our  knowledge 
of  them.  Nor  is  the  satisfaction  of  them  ren- 


118      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 


The  founda- 
tion of 
peace. 


dered  unreal  by  our  ignorance  of  the  way  in 
which  they  are  satisfied.  If  God  is  such  a 
lofty  being  as  the  moral  ruler  of  a  universe 
must  be,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  we  should 
be  able  to  fathom  the  necessities  which  are 
present  to  His  mind.  There  must  be  a  world  of 
eternal  laws  and  wants  and  needs  lying  about 
us  of  which  we  can  form  no  adequate  con- 
ception. Into  this  world  Christ  entered  by  His 
death.  Whatever  was  needed  there  for  the 
forgiveness  and  blotting  out  of  man's  sin  He 
provided.  Whatever  the  law  required  for  its 
righteous  vindication  He  performed.  It  was 
the  Father's  will  that  He  should  die  to  redeem 
men  ;  and  so  He  died,  and  men  were  redeemed. 
Thus  the  atonement  appears  in  the  New 
Testament.  Not  only  from  the  side  of  man, 
but  also  from  the  side  of  God,  it  is  the  su- 
premely necessary,  and  the  supremely  success- 
ful, peace-making  sacrifice.  "  Therefore,  being 
justified  by  faith,  we  have  peace  with  God 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life     119 

IV 
Newness  of  Life 

What  forgiveness  would  have  been  without   what 
Christ  (if  it  were  possible),  no  man  knows. 

What  forgiveness  is  in  Christ,  what  it  means 
to  "have  redemption  through  his  blood,  even 
the  forgiveness  of  sins,"  —  this  the  gospel  that 
rings  like  music  through  the  whole  New  Tes- 
tament. It  is  inward  peace,  and  secret  joy,  and 
newness  of  life. 

An  experience  like  this  cannot  possibly  be 
expressed  in  any  language  which  is  fixed  and 
formal.  It  must  utter  itself  in  vital  speech 
because  it  is  a  vital  experience.  The  attempt 
to  transform  any  of  the  glowing  words  which 
the  Apostles  use  to  describe  it  into  a  cool,  ab- 
stract, scientific  definition  inevitably  results  in 
a  misrepresentation.  The  attempt  to  interpret 
any  of  the  terms  which  are  associated  with  the 
experience  of  atonement  as  if  they  described 
legal  transactions  or  artificial  adjustments  de- 
stroys their  real  significance  as  utterances  of 
conscious  life. 

Take,   for   example,    Paul's   famous   phrase,  justifies 
"justified  by  faith."     Suppose  we  attempt  to 
define  that  by  making  it  mean  that  the  guilt 


120      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

of  the  sinner  has  been  legally  transferred  to 
Christ,  and  the  merits  of  Christ  have  been 
legally  transferred  to  the  sinner;  so  that 
Christ  on  the  cross  is  declared  guilty  and  is 
punished  for  sin,  while  the  sinner,  believing,  is 
pronounced  righteous  and  escapes  from  punish- 
ment. What  effect  would  such  an  idea  of  the 
atonement  have  upon  the  inner  life?  Apart 
from  the  frightful  confusion  which  it  must 
introduce  into  the  moral  sense  to  think  of 
God  as  the  author  of  such  an  arrangement, 
what  conceivable  influence  of  a  real  and  per- 
manent nature  could  such  a  thought  have  upon 
the  soul?  Does  it  bring  inward  happiness  to 
a  man's  heart  to  be  pronounced  righteous  when 
he  knows  that  he  is  still  unrighteous?  Does 
it  give  a  man  inward  peace  to  be  set  free  from 
punishment  when  he  is  conscious  that  the  evils 
which  deserved  it  are  still  within  him  ?  Does 
it  reconcile  a  man's  inner  life  with  God  to  have 
the  righteousness  of  another  person  attributed 
to  him  by  a  legal  fiction,  while  his  own  soul 
is  still  out  of  harmony  with  God? 

No  fiction         Merely  to  put  these  questions  is  to  see  the 
inChrist's     answer  to  them.     No;    if  Christ's  mission  is 

mission. 

to  the  inner  life,  then  His  work  in  the  inner 
life  must  be  real  and  vital.  In  this  region 
there  is  no  room  for  anything  that  is  merely 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life     121 

formal  and  artificial.  There  is  no  room  for 
what  Phillips  Brooks  calls  "  the  fantastic  con- 
ception of  the  imputation  to  Christ  of  a  sin- 
fulness  which  was  not  His,  of  God's  counting 
Him  guilty  of  wickedness  which  He  had  never 
done." 

There  is  no  legal  fiction  in  the  real  atone- 
ment. 

God  is  not  a  maker  of  fiction,  nor  can  the 
inner  life  of  man  be  satisfied  with  formalities. 
The  human  heart  revolts  at  the  idea  of  the 
punishment  of  the  innocent  in  the  place  of  the 
guilty.  Those  instincts  which  lie  deeper  than 
all  reasoning,  are  insulted  and  wounded  by  the 
thought  of  the  arbitrary  transfer  of  the  merits 
of  one  person  to  the  credit  of  another  person. 
The  moral  sense  could  never  find  peace  in  the 
contemplation  of  such  a  purely  forensic  trans- 
action. 

But  the  testimony  of  the  Apostles  is  that 
their  moral  sense,  their  conscience,  actually 
did  find  peace  through  the  atonement  as  they 
believed  in  it.  "Justification  by  faith,"  as 
they  use  the  words,  must  therefore  mean  some- 
thing very  different  from  the  definition  which 
has  sometimes  been  given  to  it.  It  must  mean 
that  righteousness  is  not  merely  imputed,  but 
actually  imparted  through  faith.  It  must  mean 


122      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 


A  new 

obedience. 


Faith 
counted 
unto  right- 
eousness. 


that  sinners  are  not  merely  declared  just,  but 
actually  made  just,  by  Christ's  work  as  the 
Saviour.  It  is  not  justification  of  law,  it  is 
"justification  of  life."1 

There  is  not  a  single  passage  in  the  New 
Testament  where  the  merits  of  one  person  are 
transferred,  or  reckoned,  or  counted  to  another. 
But  there  are  a  hundred  passages  where  the 
righteousness  and  obedience  of  Christ  are 
spoken  of  as  the  source  of  a  new  righteous- 
ness, a  new  obedience  in  us.  "How  much 
more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ  purge  your  con- 
science from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living 
God."2  "Elect  according  to  the  foreknow- 
ledge of  God  the  Father,  through  sanctification 
of  the  Spirit,  unto  obedience  and  sprinkling  of 
the  blood  of  Christ." 3  "  Our  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ,  who  gave  himself  for  us  that  he  might 
redeem  us  from  all  iniquity  and  purify  unto 
himself  a  peculiar  people,  zealous  of  good 
works."4  "If  we  walk  in  the  light  as  he  is  in 
the  light,  we  have  fellowship  one  with  another, 
and  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  his  Son  cleanseth 
us  from  all  sin."  5 

What,  then,  does  Paul  mean  when  he  says 
that  "  faith  is  counted  for  righteousness "  ? 6 


1  Rom.  v.  18. 
a  Heb.  ix.  14. 


»  1  Pet.  i.  2. 
4  Titus  ii.  14. 


5  1  John  i.  7. 
•  Rom.  iv.  5. 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      123 

He  means  not  that  faith  is  taken  in  the  place 
of  righteousness,  as  if  it  were  enough  for  a 
man  to  believe  that  Christ  was  holy  without 
making  any  effort  to  attain  to  holiness  himself. 
He  means  that  faith  is  regarded  as  an  actual 
beginning  of  righteousness,  a  seed  of  divine 
promise  and  power  in  the  soul  of  man,  to  be 
unfolded,  by  the  grace  of  God,  into  a  holy 
life.1  He  means  that  there  is  infinitely  more 
hope  and  potency  of  goodness  in  the  man  who 
trusts  in  God's  mercy  to  save  him,  and  in  God's 
holiness  to  purify  him,  and  in  God's  grace  to 
make  him  righteous,  than  there  is  in  the  man 
who  tries  to  work  out  salvation  in  his  own 
strength  according  to  the  law.  This  is  Paul's 
personal  consciousness  of  the  atonement.  It 
is  not  the  peace  of  death  :  it  is  the  peace  of 
new  life  joined  to  God.  It  involves  a  spiritual 
crucifixion  with  Christ  unto  sin.  It  involves 
also  a  real  resurrection  with  Christ  unto  right- 
eousness. "  Therefore  we  are  buried  with  him 
by  baptism  into  death,  that  like  as  Christ  was 
raised  up  from  the  dead  by  the  glory  of  the 
Father,  even  so  we  should  walk  in  newness  of 
life."2 

1  Marvin  B.  Vincent,  Word-Studies  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, Vol.  III.,  p.  52. 
3  Bom.  vi.  4. 


124      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

Newness  of  life,  —  new  hopes,  new  powers, 
new  inspiration,  new  courage,  —  that  is  the 
practical  side  of  regeneration.  And  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  New  Testament,  is  the  result  of 
the  atonement  which  Christ  brings  into  the 
inner  life  of  man. 

Paul's  Paul  was  certainly  the  one  writer  among  the 

legahsm.  Apostles  who  took  the  most  legal  point  of  view 
in  considering  the  work  of  Christ.  His  tem- 
perament, his  training,  inclined  him  to  this 
method  of  thought  and  expression.  He  was 
the  lawyer  of  the  gospel.  But  Paul  never  for 
a  moment  dreamed  that  his  forensic  figures  of 
speech  exhausted  or  limited  the  meaning  of  the 
gospel. 

Nothing  could  be  more  absurd,  more  false  to 
the  facts,  than  to  make  the  message  of  Paul  a 
mere  gospel  of  escape  from  the  law  by  belief  in 
the  vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ.  Such  a  view 
of  his  gospel  would  make  it  and  keep  it  a  purely 
legal  gospel.  Satisfaction  of  the  law  would  be 
still  its  main  theme  and  motive.  It  would 
differ  from  the  religion  of  the  Pharisees  only 
in  the  way  in  which  it  proposed  to  satisfy  the 
law.  It  would  present  a  view  of  justification 
based  upon  a  different  ground  indeed,  but 
which  in  its  results,  if  they  did  not  go  beyond 
escape  from  the  law,  would  be  just  as  incom- 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      125 

plete,  just  as  formal,  just  as  dead,  as  justifica- 
tion by  works. 

Paul's   message  was   certainly  a  gospel  of  Paul's 
escape  from  the  law ;  but  it  was  that  because  e^pe  into 
it  was  something   infinitely  more.      It  was  a 
gospel  of  escape  into  life. 

This  was  the  new  birth  that  came  to  him 
when  he  saw  Christ.  In  the  old  life  his  chief 
concern  had  been  to  fulfil  the  demands  of  the 
law;  and  that  was  not  really  a  life  at  all; 
it  was  a  kind  of  death,  not  only  because  it 
was  a  hopeless  struggle,  but  also  because  it 
was  a  subordination  of  the  inward  to  the  out- 
ward, of  the  vital  to  the  formal,  of  the  spirit 
to  the  letter.  In  the  new  life  Paul  felt  that 
he  was  set  free  from  the  task  of  fulfilling  the 
law,  not  merely  because  Christ  had  satisfied 
all  its  conceivable  demands,  but  also  because 
Christ  had  brought  him  into  an  utterly  dif- 
ferent relation  to  God;  not  outward,  but  in- 
ward ;  not  formal,  but  vital ;  not  artificial,  but 
spiritual. 

Paul's  message  was  more  than  a  doctrine  of  The  new 
law  satisfied  in  Christ.     It  was  a  proclamation  rioMeou§- 
of  life  begun  in  Christ.     There  was  as  much  ness. 
righteousness  in  this  new  life  as  there  was  in 
the  old  law.     But  it  was  a  new  kind  of  right- 
eousness.     Certainly   it   was   not   a   fictitious 


126      Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life 

kind  of  righteousness,  a  mere  legal  justifica- 
tion, a  formal  transfer  of  the  merits  of  Christ, 
by  some  mysterious  decree  of  a  supreme  court, 
to  the  credit  of  the  believer.  It  was  a  real 
righteousness,  living  and  working  itself  out 
in  the  life  of  man.  But  it  differed  from  the 
old  righteousness  in  two  things.  First,  in  its 
origin :  it  was  not  human,  but  divine ;  and 
therefore  it  must  be  received  by  faith.  Sec- 
ond, in  its  operation :  it  was  not  conformity 
to  a  rule,  but  guidance  by  the  Spirit;  and 
therefore  it  must  be  perfected  by  love. 
Salvation  Paul's  teaching  amounts  to  this.  We  are 
not  saved  through  law ;  we  are  saved  through 
life.  Life  does  not  mean  outward  obedience. 
That  is  only  the  shell  of  Iife0  Real  life  means 
faith  and  hope  and  love.  The  only  source 
of  this  life  is  in  God.  Christ  alone  brings 
this  life  near  to  us,  makes  it  accessible,  sweeps 
away  all  hindrances,  and  invites  us  to  enter 
into  it  by  giving  ourselves  entirely  to  him. 
To  live,  according  to  Paul,  means  to  believe 
in  Christ,  to  hope  in  Christ,  and  to  love 
Christ,  because  He  is  the  human  life  of  God, 
"delivered  for  our  offences  and  raised  again 
for  our  justification."1 

Mark  well  the  words.     Why  "raised  again 
1  Rom.  iv.  25. 


Christ's  Mission  to  the  Inner  Life      127 

for  our  justification  ?"  If  the  taking  away  of  The  living 
our  sins  means  only  the  release  from  their  Christ' 
punishment  because  He  has  borne  them  upon  the 
cross,  then  His  resurrection  makes  no  difference 
in  the  result.  If  our  justification  means  only 
the  imputation  of  the  merit  of  His  obedience 
and  the  value  of  His  sacrifice  to  our  account, 
then  His  rising  again  from  the  dead  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  it.  Everything  would  be  secure, 
whether  He  rose,  or  whether  He  did  not  rise. 
Why  "raised  again  for  our  justification?" 
Because  the  taking  away  of  our  sins  means 
an  actual  separation  from  sin  by  union  with 
the  crucified  Christ.  Because  our  justification 
means  a  living  entrance  into  His  righteousness 
in  the  risen  life.  The  mission  of  Christ  to  the 
inner  life  was  just  this  :  To  make  such  an 
atonement  that  sin  should  no  more  divide  the 
soul  from  God  :  To  make  such  an  atonement 
that  the  broken  law  should  no  more  keep  the 
soul  at  enmity  with  God  :  To  make  such  an 
atonement  that  the  inner  life  of  all  who  truly 
live,  should  be  "not  unto  themselves,  but  unto 
him  who  died  for  them  and  rose  again." 


V 

THE    PERFECTION  OF   ATONEMENT 


We  may  not  know,  we  cannot  tell, 

What  pains  He  had  to  bear ; 
But  we  believe  it  was  for  us 

He  hung  and  suffered  there. 

He  died  that  we  might  be  forgiven; 

He  died  to  make  us  good, 
That  we  might  go  at  last  to  heaven 

Saved  by  His  precious  blood. 

—  CECIL  FRANCES  ALEXANDER. 


THE   PERFECTION  OF  ATONEMENT 

ATONEMENT   is   the  word  that   seems  best  Theatone- 
fitted  to  express  the  meaning  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ  in  relation  to  a  world  of  sin.     I  have 
used  it  thus  far  without  defining  it,  for  three 
reasons. 

First,  because  a  final  definition  is  impossible. 
The  work  of  Christ  for  the  saving  of  sinners 
can  never  be  confined  within  the  phrases  which 
men  invent  to  describe  what  they  can  see  of 
it.  It  overflows  the  boundaries.  Its  fulness 
makes  it  indefinable. 

Second,  because  the  very  attempt  to  define  ofthe 
it    has    so    often    led    to    misconception   and  maktnff°f 

many  books. 

strife  between  men  who  believed  in  it  with 
equal  sincerity.  I  have  read  many  books  on 
the  atonement.  If  the  titles  and  references 
were  given  here,  they  would  fill  several  pages. 
In  almost  all  of  these  books  I  have  found 
truth;  in  none  of  them  the  whole  truth.  The 
writers  have  helped  me  most  when  they  have 
expressed  their  own  experience  of  the  saving 
131 


132 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement 


Clearness 

•without 

definition. 


power  of  Christ.  They  have  helped  me  least 
when  they  have  been  making  definitions  to 
shut  out  and  condemn  the  views  of  other 
writers.  Yet  even  in  this  they  have  not  been 
altogether  unprofitable.  An  attack  upon  a 
book  has  often  led  me  to  read  it  sympatheti- 
cally, and  so  to  discover  in  it  a  new  source 
of  illumination,  a  new  testimony  of  experi- 
ence. 

The  third  reason  why  I  have  not  tried  to 
give  a  definition  of  the  atonement  is  because 
it  is  not  needed.  The  word  is  clear  enough 
and  plain  enough  already.  It  denotes  a  cer- 
tain mystery,  —  the  entire  work  of  Christ  in 
reuniting  man  to  God,  —  the  perfect  result  of 
that  work  in  the  establishment  of  peace  be- 
tween man  and  God,  —  the  redeeming  relation 
of  that  work  to  human  sin,  —  the  satisfying 
relation  of  that  work  to  divine  righteousness, 
—  it  denotes  a  mystery,  but  it  denotes  it  in 
language  which  brings  it  into  analogy  with 
things  that  we  know,  and  throws  upon  it  light 
enough  to  enable  us  to  see  at  least  some  of  its 
essential  elements. 

For  what  is  this  word,  and  where  does  it 
word'  come  from  ?  It  comes  directly  out  of  human 
life  and  experience.  It  is  derived  from  an 
older  word,  "onement"  which  means  unity  or 


The  history 


TJie  Perfection  of  Atonement  133 

concord.1  To  set  two  persons  or  things  "at 
onement"  means  to  bring  them  together  in 
harmony  after  .  discord.  Atonement  is  simply 
the  process,  or  the  result,  of  reuniting  and 
reconciling  those  who  have  been  separated. 
Thus,  in  Shakespeare's  Richard  III.,  Bucking- 
ham says  to  the  Queen: 

"  Ay,  madame ;  he  desires  to  make  atonement 
Between  the  Duke  of  Gloster  and  your  brothers." 

From  this  original  and  broadest  meaning,  the 
word  is  sometimes  narrowed  a  little  to  denote 
some  particular  action  or  offering  by  which  the 
reconciliation  is  effected.  It  may  come  either 
from  one  of  the  separated  parties,  or  from  a 
third  person  who  offers  himself  as  a  reconciler. 
But  in  any  case  three  elements  must  always 
enter  into  the  idea  of  an  atonement. 

First,  the  motive  of  it  must  be  love.  It  Three  eie- 
cannot  possibly  spring  from  any  other  cause. 
Justice,  or  righteousness,  or  authority,  —  and 
least  of  all  anger  or  hate,  —  would  never 
account  for  the  desire  of  making  a  reconcilia- 
tion. It  can  only  come  from  a  sincere  love 

1  «*  Ye  witless  gallants,  I  beshrew  your  hearts 

Which  make  such  discord  'twixt  agreeing  parts, 
Which  never  can  be  set  at  onement  more." 

BISHOP  HALL'S  Satires,  1599. 


134  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

for  the  persons  to  be  reconciled,  and  an  earnest 
wish  that  they  shall  love  each  other. 

Second,  the  condition  under  which  this  love 
works  is  the  sense  of  a  present  separation, 
arising  out  of  a  fault,  an  offence,  which  has 
created  a  real  obstacle  between  the  persons 
who  are  in  enmity. 

Third,  the  purpose  which  this  love  has  in 
view  is  a  real  state  of  harmony,  in  which  the 
persons  who  are  to  be  brought  together  shall 
be  vitally  at  one. 

These,  then,  are  the  three  marks  of  all  atone- 
ment. Its  creative  cause  is  the  power  of  love. 
Its  occasional  cause  is  the  recognition  of  an 
offence.  Its  final  cause  is  the  restoration  of 
vital  union. 

Lesser  Atonements  have  been  going  on  in  the  world 

lts'  from  the  beginning;  between  man  and  man,  and 
between  man  and  God.  Those  who  have  been 
conscious  of  injury  and  offence  against  their 
fellow-men  have  been  trying  to  make  some 
reparation,  to  show  some  contrition  for  the 
wrong,  and  to  reestablish  peace.  Those  who 
have  been  grieved  at  the  prevalence  of  enmity 
and  strife  among  their  friends  have  been  try- 
ing to  bring  about  reconciliation,  by  mediating 
between  the  offended  and  the  offender. 

This  mediation  involves  suffering  and  sacri- 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement          135 

fice  on  the  part  of  the  peacemaker.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  obtain  forgiveness  and  love 
for  a  guilty  person  without  bearing  something 
of  his  pain  and  punishment.  Many  a  father  has 
suffered  for  the  sake  of  making  peace  among  his 
children  who  were  at  strife.  Many  a  mother 
has  borne  not  only  grief,  but  also  actual  trouble 
and  loss,  for  the  sake  of  reconciling  a  rebellious 
boy  to  an  offended  father.  Many  a  brother  has 
shared  the  disgrace  and  paid  the  debts  of  a 
brother,  for  the  sake  of  bringing  him  back  into 
the  harmony  of  the  social  order.  And  in  such 
sufferings  of  love  for  the  cause  of  atonement 
there  is  always  something  which  propitiates  the 
heart  and  inclines  it  to  show  favour.  The 
father's  compassion  toward  an  erring  son  is 
always  deepened  and  quickened  by  the  thought 
of  the  mother's  love  as  expressed  in  sacrifice. 
The  sentiment  of  society,  which  after  all  is  the 
final  earthly  court  of  appeal  in  all  questions  of 
conduct,  is  certainly  affected  favourably  toward 
an  offender  by  the  fact  that  an  innocent  friend 
is  willing  to  stand  beside  him  and  share  in 
some  degree  the  consequences  of  his  fault. 
All  this  is  of  the  nature  of  atonement,  and 
there  is  no  corner  of  the  world  where  the  let- 
ters of  this  word  may  not  be  spelled  out,  like 
a  dim  and  broken  inscription,  on  the  fragments 
of  human  life. 


136 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement 


Sacrifices 
for  sin. 


Atonement 
in  the  Old 
Testament. 


The  same  word  runs  through  the  history  of 
religion  from  the  beginning  until  now.  Sacri- 
fice is  another  way  of  spelling  it ;  and  sacrifice 
is  primitive  and  universal. 

"Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call 
them  friend"  men  have  not  only  prayed,  but 
also  presented  gifts  and  offerings  to  God,  in 
the  desire  to  take  away  the  obstacle  of  sin  and 
reconcile  the  human  heart  to  Him. 

Atonement  is  spoken  of  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  many  places.  It  is  said  that  an  atone- 
ment was  made  when  Moses  interceded  for  the 
people  at  Sinai,1  when  Aaron  burned  incense 
in  the  midst  of  the  congregation,2  when  Phine- 
has  executed  judgment  on  Zimri,3  and  when 
Nehemiah  established  ordinances  in  the  restored 
city  of  Jerusalem.4  The  Hebrew  word  which 
is  used  in  these  passages,  and  in  many  others 
where  some  form  of  the  verb  "  to  atone  "  occurs 
in  our  English  version,  is  from  a  root  which 
means  "to  cover."  It  carries  with  it  the  idea 
of  guilt  which  needs  to  be  expiated.  But  the 
object  of  the  expiation  is  the  renewal  of  fellow- 
ship between  man  and  God.  Sacrifice  has  this 
twofold  meaning.  The  slaying  of  the  victim 
is  the  confession  that  sin  deserves  punishment. 


1  Ex.  xxxii.  30. 

2  Num.  xvi.  46. 


8  Num.  xxv.  13. 
*  Neh.  x.  33. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  137 

The  offering  of  the  blood,  which  is  the  sign  of 
the  life,  is  the  utterance  of  the  worshipper's 
desire  to  return  into  union  with  God.1 

Now  all  these  kinds  of  atonement,  which  men  The  figures 
have  been  making  through  the  centuries,  and  °*  t 
are  making  still,  are  but  shadows  and  reflections 
of  the  great  work  which  Christ  came  to  do  for 
a   sinful  world.     Its   purpose   and   design,  its 
nature  and  conditions,  the  depth  of  its  motive 
and  the  breadth  of  its   scope,  cannot  be  ex- 
pressed by  any  lesser,  narrower,  more  precise 
word. 

It  takes  up  into  itself  the  significance  of  all  The  final 
sincere   and  pure  sacrifices  which   have   been  5acn#ce- 
offered  on  human  altars,  visible  and  invisible. 
Christ  is  the  eternal  embodiment  of  the  sacri- 
ficial spirit.2 

It  utters  the  great  peace-making  desire  of  The  great 
all  those   blessed   human   mediators  who  have  Peace' 

maker. 

laboured  and  suffered  to  bring  together  divided 
hearts  and  to  restore  harmony  between  discor- 
dant lives.3  In  this  light  it  reveals  Christ  as 
standing  between  God  and  man,  and  touching 
both  the  human  and  the  divine. 

It  is  the  perfect  consummation  of  all  those   The  High 
imperfect  offerings  which  have  been  made   in 

i  Lux  Mundi,  pp.  279  ff.  a  Heb.  ix.  26. 

«  Eph.  ii.  14-18. 


138  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

behalf   of  those  who  are  guilty,  to  propitiate 
One  who  has  a  right  to  be  offended  with  them. 
In  this  sense  Christ  appears  as  the  High  Priest 
of  sinful  and  repentant  humanity.1 
TJieforgiv-        It  is  the  divine  interpretation  and  consecra- 

°f  tion  of  a11  tnose  r°yal  acts  of  compassion  and 
mercy  in  which  men  and  women  who  have 
been  sinned  against  have  expressed  their  free 
forgiveness  and  sought  to  win  their  enemies 
back  to  peace.  In  this  aspect  Christ  is  re- 
vealed as  the  incarnate  love  of  God,  coming 
forth  from  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  to  seek 
and  to  save  His  lost  children.2 

No  word  which  fails  to  cover  all  these  mean- 
ings, no  word  which  sharply  emphasizes  one 
side  of  the  truth  at  the  expense  of  the  other 
sides,  no  word  which  leaves  out  of  its  signifi- 
cance the  sweetness  of  any  of  those  things  most 
"pure  and  lovely  and  of  good  report"  which 
have  been  done  in  the  spirit  of  reconciliation,  is 
broad  enough  to  describe  the  work  of  Christ 
in  closing  the  gulf  which  sin  had  made  between 
man  and  God.  Sacrifice  is  not  broad  enough. 
Mediation  is  not  broad  enough.  Propitiation 
is  not  broad  enough.  Redemption  is  not  broad 
enough.  Substitution  is  not  broad  enough. 
Satisfaction  is  not  broad  enough.  Embracing 
1  Heb.  x.  10-14.  2  1  John  iii.  16. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  139 

all  these  things,  Christ's  work  goes  beyond 
them  all.  It  is  simply  the  perfection  of  atone- 
ment. 

The  word  occurs  but  once  in  the  English  "^one- 
version  of  the  New  Testament,  in  a  passage  ™"tfe™ 
where  St.  Paul  declares  that  "  we  joy  in  God  Testament. 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  we 
have  now  received  the  atonement."1  But  the 
same  Greek  noun  which  is  here  rendered 
"atonement,"  occurs  again  in  a  later  verse, 
where  he  speaks  of  "the  reconciling  of  the 
world,"  2  and  in  a  still  more  important  passage 
of  another  epistle,  where  he  describes  the  gos- 
pel as  "  the  word  of  the  reconciliation,"  and  the 
preacher's  work  as  "the  ministry  of  the  recon- 
ciliation."3 The  translation  should  be  made 
uniform  in  all  three  places.  Then  we  should 
have  "  the  atonement  of  the  world,"  "  the  word 
of  the  atonement,"  and  "the  ministry  of  the 
atonement." 

This  would  prepare  us  to  appreciate  the  full  The  classic 
force  of  another  passage  in  which  we  find,  not 
the  noun,  but  the  verb  from  which  it  is  de- 
rived, in  an  intensive  form  which  gives  it  new 
value,  and  in  a  connection  which  seems  to  pour 
fresh  light  upon  it  from  all  sides  of  human 

1  Bom.  v.  11.  2  Rom.  xi.  16. 

«  2  Cor.  v.  18,  19. 


140  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

experience.1  The  classic  passage  on  the  atone- 
ment is  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Colossians,  and  the  central  idea  of  it  is  in  the 
twentieth  verse,  in  which  St.  Paul  declares 
that  it  pleased  the  Father,  by  Christ,  "  to  atone 
all  things  with  himself  ;  by  him,  I  say,  whether 
they  be  things  in  earth,  or  things  in  heaven." 
Go  backward  and  forward  from  this  point,  and 
see  how  many  meanings  converge  in  St.  Paul's 
idea  of  the  great  atonement.  Deliverance  from 
the  power  of  darkness  ; 2  redemption  through 
Christ's  blood,  even  the  forgiveness  of  sins  ; 3 
a  new  birth  from  the  dead  ;  4  peace-making  by 
the  cross  ; 5  the  winning  back  of  enemies  ; 6 
the  taking  away  of  blame  and  reproof ; 7  the 
interpretation  of  human  sufferings  in  fellow- 
ship with  the  afflictions  of  Christ ; 8  and  finally 
the  making  known  of  the  riches  of  the  glory 
of  a  mystery,  "  which  is  Christ  in  you,  the  hope 
of  glory."9  This,  indeed,  is  atonement  made 
perfect. 

When  that         The  perfection  of  it  lies  in  the  fulness  and 
which  is        clearness  with  which  it  embodies  and  expresses 

perfect  is 

come.  the  three  essential  elements  of  all  lesser  atone- 


1  The  noun  is  Kard\\ay^ :  the  verb  is  Kara\\<i<Tffu :  the 
intensive  form  is  dTOKaraXXdrrw. 

3  vs.  13.        »  vs.  14.        4  vs.  18.        6  vs.  20.        •  vs.  21. 
7  vs.  22.        8  vs.  24.        9  vs.  27, 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  141 

ments.  Its  purpose  is  a  true,  deep,  eternal 
harmony  of  spirit  between  man  and  God,  a 
peace  which  the  world  can  neither  give  nor 
take  away.  Its  condition  of  operative  power 
is  a  full  acknowledgment  of  the  immense  ob- 
stacle which  sin  has  put  between  man  and  God. 
Its  motive  is  pure  and  perfect  love,  —  the  love 
which  meets  all  needs  as  man  feels  them  in 
his  repentant  heart,  —  the  love  which  passeth 
knowledge  in  its  power  to  cover  the  whole 
mystery  of  sin  as  it  is  known  to  God  alone. 


142  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 


Atonement 
begins  with 
God's  love. 


Atonement 
a  form  of 
Incarna- 
tion. 


The  Love  that  meets  All  Needs 

There  is  no  truly  Christian  view  of  the 
atonement  which  does  not  begin  with  the  love 
of  God.1  This  love  involves  the  primal  pur- 
pose of  self -revelation,  of  fellowship  with  man, 
of  a  divine  incarnation.  There  is  a  gospel,  a 
promise  of  God's  communication  of  Himself  to 
man,  in  the  very  act  of  creation.  "  The  faith 
of  the  atonement  presupposes  the  faith  of  the 
incarnation."2 

If  this  be  true,  it  follows  that  we  may  be- 
lieve that  the  Son  of  God  would  have  come 
into  the  world  whether  man  had  sinned  or  not. 
God  has  chosen  and  loved  mankind  in  His  Son 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world.3  There  is 
a  profound  truth  in  the  saying  of  Robertson  of 
Brighton,  "  God's  idea  of  humanity  is,  and  ever 
was,  humanity  as  it  is  in  Jesus  Christ."* 

Atonement,  therefore,  is  the  form  which  is 
given  to  the  incarnation  by  the  presence  of  sin 


1  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall,  The  Gospel  of  the  Divine  Sacri- 
fice, ch.  i. 

2  Campbell,  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  pp.  xvi  ff. 
8  Eph.  i.  4. 

*  Life  and  Letters  of  F.  W.  Robertson,  Vol.  II.,  p.  121. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  143 

in  the  world.  Christ  would  have  come  to  us 
as  the  revealer  of  the  divine  love,  even  though 
the  world  had  never  been  separated  from  God.1 
But  because  the  separation  had  actually  taken 
place,  because  man  had  offended  against  God, 
and  departed  from  His  ideal,  and  fallen  into 
enmity  with  Him,  Christ  must  reveal  the 
divine  love  as  a  suffering  love,  a  sacrificial 
love,  a  reconciling  love,  in  order  to  bring  man 
back  to  God. 

This  atoning  form  of  incarnation  appears  to   The  glory  of 
us   more   glorious,  more  wonderful,  than  any  thisf°rm- 
other  form,  because  it  costs  more.     It  is  love 
put   to   the   test.     It   is   love   overcoming  ob- 
stacles.     It   is   love   militant    and  victorious. 
And  its  perfection  is  manifest  in  the  freedom 
and  fulness  with  which  it  meets  all  the  needs 
imposed  by  the  fact  of  sin. 

Our   consciousness   of    these    needs    is    the  The  known 

measure  of  our  power  to  understand  the  atone-  °;nd  the  un~ 

known. 

ment.  But  beyond  this  consciousness  there  is 
another  region  wherein  the  results  of  evil,  the 
disorders  which  it  has  introduced  into  the  world, 
surpass  our  comprehension.  In  that  region  we 
cannot  fully  understand  the  atonement.  We 

1  Westcott's  Commentary  on  the  Epistles  of  John,  pp. 
273  if.  Oxenham,  The  Catholic  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement, 
pp.  80  ff. 


144  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

can  only  accept  it,  and  rest  upon  it,  as  a  great 
fact  through  which  the  concord  of  an  untuned 
universe  is  restored,  and  infinite  mercy  is  har- 
monized with  infinite  justice  in  the  redemptive 
government  of  the  world. 

In  music  there  are  notes  too  high  and  too 
low  for  us  to  hear.  But  the  chord  which  fills 
the  range  of  our  hearing  with  harmony  must  be 
harmonious  also  in  the  unheard  undertones  and 
overtones.  Our  faith  in  the  unmeasured  values 
of  the  atonement  in  the  spheres  beyond  our 
ken  is  inseparably  connected  with  an  experi- 
ence of  its  active  power  to  meet  our  conscious 
wants  as  sinful  men. 

The  needs  of  What  are  these  wants?  They  spring  from 
the  four  elements  which  are  present  in  the  sense 
of  sin,  —  the  shame  of  impurity,  the  pain  of 
bondage,  the  apprehension  of  guilt,  and  the 
hope  of  mercy.1  To  these  four  elements,  and 
to  the  needs  which  arise  out  of  them,  there  are 
four  things  in  the  atonement  which  correspond, 
—  a  power  to  cleanse  the  soul,  a  power  to  lib- 
erate the  life,  a  power  to  satisfy  the  law,  and  a 
power  to  reveal  forgiveness.  And  these  four 
things  are  spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament 
under  four  principal  expressions,  —  a  sin-offer- 


ii.,  pp/40ff. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  145 

ing ; l  a  ransom  ;  2  a  satisfaction,  the  payment 
of  a  debt ; 3  and  a  reconciliation.4 

There  is  a  famous  passage  in  Coleridge's  Metaphors 
Aids  to  Reflection*  in  which  he  explains  that 
these  expressions  are  figures  of  speech,  which 
do  not  describe  the  real  nature  of  the  atone- 
ment, but  only  illustrate  "the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  consequences  and  effects  of  the 
atonement,  and  excite  in  the  receivers  a  due 
sense  of  the  magnitude  and  manifold  operation 
of  the  boon,  and  of  the  love  and  gratitude  due 
to  the  Redeemer." 

I  should  accept  the  positive  part  of  Cole- 
ridge's explanation,  but  I  should  reject  the 
negative  part  of  it. 

Undoubtedly  these  metaphors  are  intended  Their 
to  express  the  great  benefits  which  sinners 
receive  from  the  atoning  work  of  Christ. 
They  describe  the  results  which  it  produces 
in  the  consciousness  of  man,  —  a  sense  of 
cleansing  from  defilement,  a  sense  of  deliver- 
ance from  slavery,  a  sense  of  being  right  with 
the  law,  and  a  sense  of  God's  willingness  to 


1  Heb.  ix.  19-28  ;  1  John  i.  7  ;  Rev.  i.  5. 

2  1  Tim.  ii.  6  ;  Gal.  iv.  5  ;  Eph.  i.  7 ;  Col.  i.  14. 
8  Gal.  v.  3  ;  2  Cor.  v.  21 ;  1  Pet.  iii.  18. 

*  Eph.  ii.  14,  16  ;  2  Tim.  ii.  5. 
6  pp.  309  ff.,  American  edition. 


146  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

pardon.  These  are  subjective  effects.  They 
are  within  us.  But  do  they  not  belong  to  the 
real  nature  and  intention  of  the  atonement  ? 
Are  they  not  clear  indications  of  its  purpose 
and  meaning  ?  Is  not  this  complete  reconcilia- 
tion with  God,  in  spite  of  sin,  precisely  what  it 
was  intended  to  accomplish?  Are  not  these 
consequences  in  man's  spiritual  consciousness 
just  as  real,  just  as  veritable,  as  any  other  con- 
sequences that  we  can  imagine  ? 

The  The   atonement,  as   has  been   said,  "is   the 

meeting-point  of  the  objective  and  subjective 
elements  of  Christianity."1  It  covers  all  the 
ground  that  lies  between  God  and  man,  so  far 
as  sin  has  touched  it.  It  has  a  reference  to 
every  element  of  the  divine  nature  which  con- 
demns sin,  and  to  every  element  of  human 
nature  which  is  affected  by  sin.  It  acts  directly 
upon  the  divine  will  and  upon  the  human  will.2 
There  is  no  possible  metaphor,  drawn  from  any 
real  relation  of  man  to  God,  which  is  without 
its  value  in  illustrating  the  real  nature  of  the 
atonement. 

So   far,   then,   from   denying   the   verity  of 
these  four  figures  of  speech,  we  should  accept 

1  Oxenham,  Catholic  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  p.  xl. 
3  Ritschl,  History  of  the  Christian  Doctrine  of  Justifica- 
tion and  Beconciliation,  p.  9. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  147 

them  as  expressions  of  substantial  truth.  We 
should  seek  to  make  them  as  real  and  living  as 
possible  in  our  own  experience.  And  we  should 
go  back  to  the  New  Testament  to  see  if  there 
are  not  other  metaphors  of  the  atonement 
which  fit  in  with  our  consciousness  of  need  as 
sinners. 

There  are  four  other  figures  of  speech,  less   The  figures 
familiar,  and  less  frequently  used,  which  throw  ™*d. by 
new  light  upon  the  subject.     They  are  used  by 
Christ  Himself  to  describe  the  effects  of  His 
sacrifice.     It  would  be  well  if  they  were  taken 
more  deeply  into  our  conception  of  the  atone- 
ment. 

The  first  figure  is  the  metaphor  of  germina-  Germina- 
tion.  "  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone :  but  if  it  die, 
it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit."1  This  means 
that  Christ's  death  is  the  means  of  communi- 
cating new  life  —  pure,  holy,  immortal  —  to  the 
souls  of  men.  It  answers  to  the  need  which 
springs  out  of  the  shame  of  sin  as  the  conscious 
deadening  of  the  higher  life. 

The  second  figure  is  the  metaphor  of  vicari-   The  Shep- 
ous  suffering.     «  I  am  the  good  shepherd :  the 
good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep."2  sheep. 
This  means  that  because  Christ  loves  us,  and 
1  John  xii.  24.  «  John  x.  11. 


148 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement 


Consecra- 
tion. 


The  new 
covenant. 


has  identified  Himself  with  us,  He  is  willing  to 
die  for  us  in  order  to  rescue  us  from  sin,  the  rob- 
ber of  our  souls.  It  is  another  aspect  of  redemp- 
tion, the  ransom  of  a  life  willingly  laid  down  for 
others  in  the  conflict  with  evil.  It  answers  to 
the  painful  sense  of  helplessness  in  our  strug- 
gles to  escape  from  sin.  It  is  the  voice  of  the 
victor  who  stands  by  the  vanquished  and  prom- 
ises deliverance. 

The  third  figure  is  the  metaphor  of  consecra- 
tion. "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself,  that 
they  also  might  be  sanctified  through  the 
truth."1  This  means  that  Christ's  death  is 
the  completion  of  His  holy  obedience  to  God. 
It  is  more  than  the  payment  of  a  debt  exacted 
by  the  law.  It  is  the  fulfilment  of  a  service 
prompted  by  love.  "  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy  will, 
O  God."2  And  so  it  becomes  in  us  the  spirit 
of  a  new  obedience. 

The  fourth  figure  is  the  metaphor  of  a  new 
covenant  of  pardon.  "  This  is  my  blood  of  the 
new  covenant,  which  is  shed  for  many  for  the 
remission  of  sins."3  This  means  that  Christ's 
death  is  the  seal  of  God's  entering  into  a  new 
engagement  with  us,  not  of  works,  but  of 
grace,  in  which  He  will  deal  with  us  as  a 


i  John.  xvii.  19.  2  Heb.  x.  9. 

«  Matt.  xxvi.  28. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  149 

father,  forgiving  our  sins  for  His  name's  sake. 
An  ancient  covenant  was  always  sealed  with 
blood.  But  it  was  not  made  on  account  of  the 
blood.  That  was  simply  the  sign  of  the  solem- 
nity and  binding  force  of  the  engagement.  The 
covenant  itself  rested  upon  the  willingness  of 
both  parties  to  enter  into  it  and  to  keep  it. 
Christ's  death  does  not  make  God  willing  to 
forgive.  It  reveals  His  forgiveness  as  ready 
and  waiting  for  us  to  claim  it. 

Now  take  these  four  latter  metaphors  of  the  A  corn- 
effects  of  the  atonement  in  its  relation  to  us,  pai 
and  lay  them  beside  the  four  others  which  are 
more  familiarly  employed.     See  how  they  mu- 
tually  illuminate   one   another,   and    how  the 
light  which  comes  from  each  reminds  us  that 
no  one  of  them   can  be   interpreted   alone   as 
the  secret  of  "the  true  doctrine  of  atonement." 

There  is  a  sacrificial  element  in  it,  assuredly.    The 
It  is  an  offering  for  sin.      But  it    is   not  in  sacrificial 

element. 

any  sense  an  offering  which  is  separate  from 
us.  It  is  implanted  in  us,  in  our  human  nature, 
as  a  seed  is  planted  in  the  earth,  to  germinate 
and  bear  fruit. 

There  was  a  substitution  on  Calvary.  But 
it  was  not  the  substitution  of  a  sinless  Christ 
for  a  sinful  race.  It  was  the  substitution  of 


150  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

humanity  plus  Christ,  for  humanity  minus 
Christ.  He  bore  our  sins,  not  apart  from  us, 
but  with  us.  He  expressed,  in  His  willing  sub- 
mission to  the  death  of  the  cross,  the  ideal  and 
representative  repentance  of  mankind  for  sin.1 
And  this  sacrifice  is  the  sufficient  atonement 
for  the  original  sin  of  the  whole  race.  He  is 
joined  by  His  cross  to  every  sinful  soul  that 
repents  of  actual  sin,  and  thus  there  is  no 
further  need  of  sacrifice,  since  the  offering  of 
Christ  abides  forever  and  germinates  in  each 
heart  that  believes  in  Him.  To  be  crucified 
with  Christ  is  to  feel  the  guilt  of  sin  in  like 
manner  (though  never  in  like  degree)  as  He 
felt  it.  It  is  to  acknowledge  the  righteousness 
of  the  law  which  condemns  sin,  even  as  He 
acknowledged  it  by  suffering  with  the  race 
which  lay  under  condemnation.  It  is  to  pre- 
sent to  God,  by  faith,  our  lesser  sacrifices  of  a 
broken  and  a  contrite  spirit,  not  now  standing 
alone  in  their  imperfection,  but  purified  and 
made  precious  by  union  with  that  perfect 
sacrifice  in  which  Jesus  Christ  poured  out  His 
soul  unto  death. 

The  There   is   also  a  redemptive  element  in  the 

atonement>  undoubtedly.     It  is  a  ransom  which 
i  Campbell,  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  pp.  247  ff. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  151 

emancipates  us  from  the  tyranny  of  evil.  But 
it  is  not,  as  the  patristic  writers  imagined,  a 
ransom  paid  to  the  devil.  There  is  no  trace 
of  such  an  idea  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is, 
as  Christ  Himself  teaches  us,  a  victory  over  the 
evil  one.  It  is  our  ransom,  just  as  the  death  of  a 
heroic  leader  who  conquers  in  a  good  cause  and 
in  conquering  dies,  is  the  ransom  of  his  people 
from  defeat  and  slavery.  The  liberating  power 
of  Christ's  death  for  us  is  never  to  be  separated 
from  His  spiritual  victory  over  evil,  nor  from 
the  courage  which  it  inspires  in  our  hearts  to 
know  that  we  have  such  a  mighty,  faithful, 
triumphant  Shepherd. 

There  is  also  an  element  of  satisfaction  to  The  satis- 
the  righteous  law  in  the  atonement,  undoubt-  Sactlon" 
edly.     Christ  fulfilled  all  that  the  law  of  God 
required.     He  paid  the  debt  of  righteousness 
to  the  full.     But  the  emphasis  in  this  satisfac- 
tion is  not  to  be  laid  exclusively,  nor  chiefly, 
upon   His   sufferings,  but  upon  His  holiness, 
upon   His  willing   and   complete  obedience  to 
the  Father  in  all  things.     As  St.  Bernard  said, 
Non  mors,  sed  voluntas  placuit  sponte  morientis. 

The  value  and  meaning  of  Christ's  atone- 
ment as  a  satisfaction  depends  upon  the  con- 
nection of  His  sufferings  and  death  with  His 


152  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

perfect  life.  It  was  "the  mind  that  was  in 
Christ  Jesus  "  that  made  Him  "  obedient  unto 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross."1  That 
mind  of  obedience  was  the  priceless  jewel 
worth  more  than  enough  to  pay  the  whole 
debt  of  righteousness. 

if  Christ  The  truth  of  this  view  is  self-evident.     How 

had  died  in    can  we  think  of  it  in  any  other  way  ?     Suppose 

childhood  ? 

for  a  moment  that  Christ  had  died  in  infancy. 

Suppose  that  instead  of  escaping  into  Egypt 
with  the  Virgin  Mary  and  St.  Joseph,  the  babe 
Jesus  had  been  slain  with  the  other  children  of 
Bethlehem.  His  death  would  still  have  been 
the  sacrifice  of  an  innocent  victim.  It  would 
still  have  shown  the  hatefulness  and  cruelty  of 
human  sin.  It  might  still  be  regarded,  in 
imagination,  as  the  substitution  of  the  guiltless 
for  the  guilty.  It  might  still  be  defined,  by 
a  legal  fiction,  as  the  transference  of  a  penalty 
to  one  who  had  not  transgressed.  It  might 
still  be  presented,  by  a  purely  forensic  theory,  as 
an  exhibition  of  a  supposed  vindictive  element 
in  the  law,  which  could  only  be  satisfied  by 
the  shedding  of  innocent  blood.  All  this  might 
still  be  attributed  to  the  death  of  Christ  if  it 
had  befallen  Him  in  helpless  infancy.  But 
would  it  then  have  been,  in  any  satisfactory 
1  Phil.  ii.  6-8. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  153 

sense,  an  atoning  sacrifice  ?  Would  it  have  had 
any  power  to  really  reconcile  our  hearts  with 
the  law  which  requires  righteousness  ? 

No,  a  thousand  times  no  !     That  which  gives   The  value  of 
the  obedience  of  the  cross  its  reconciling  power  obedience- 
is   the    fact   that    it  was  voluntary  suffering, 
holy   suffering,    suffering   which   made    Christ 
perfect,1  the  crown  and  consummation  of  His 
patient,  faithful,  self-denying,  stainless  life. 

It  is  only  when  we  look  at  it  in  this  way  that 
the  holiness  of  Christ  becomes,  not  the  substi- 
tute for  our  holiness  (which  would  contradict 
the  spirit  of  the  law),  but  the  source  of  our 
holiness,2  —  the  consecration  of  our  Kinsman 
High-Priest,  in  which  and  by  which  the  conse- 
cration of  His  brethren  is  secured.3  "  Christ  is 
the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to  every 
one  that  believeth."4  Thus,  and  thus  only, 
the  law  is  satisfied  in  Him. 

Once  more,  there  is  a  reconciling  element  in   The  recon- 
the  atonement,  undoubtedly.     It  does  remove  Clhatwn- 
a  real  obstacle  between  man  and  God.     It  does 
bring  God  nearer  to  man,  in  order  that  man 
may  come  close  to  God.     But  this  obstacle  is 

1  Heb.  ii.  10. 

2  W.  E.  Gladstone,  Later  Gleanings,  p.  336. 
8  Heb.  ii.  11-18.  *  Rom.  x.  4. 


154  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

never  to  be  thought  of  as  an  unwillingness  on 
God's  part  to  pardon  and  restore  the  guilty. 
This  reconciliation  is  always  to  be  interpreted 
in  the  light  of  Christ's  word  of  "the  new  cove- 
nant," freely  and  gladly  made  by  the  divine 
mercy,  and  sealed  with  the  most  holy  seal  in  the 
universe, — "the  precious  blood  of  Christ,  as 
of  a  lamb  without  blemish  and  without  spot."  l 
Grace  is  the  The  atonement,  then,  is  never  to  be  regarded 
Catonement.  as  tne  cause  °^  G°cl's  grace.  It  is  the  result 
and  the  seal  of  His  grace.  It  is  the  channel 
made  by  grace,  through  which  all  the  blessed 
effects  of  the  divine  love  may  flow,  across  the 
bitter  waste  that  sin  has  made,  to  all  who 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  in  order 
that  they  may  be  filled. 

What  has  it  If  any  one  should  ask,  therefore,  "  What  has 
d°™/°r  the  atonement  done  for  you  ? "  our  answer 
should  be  broad  enough  to  cover  all  our  needs. 
With  Christ  God  has  freely  given  us  all  things  : 
an  assurance  of  mercy,  divinely  sealed  ;  a  satis- 
faction of  the  law,  divinely  perfected  ;  a  ransom 
from  evil,  divinely  accomplished ;  a  sacrifice 
for  sin,  divinely  offered ;  a  covenant  of  peace ; 
a  spirit  of  consecration ;  a  good  Shepherd  of 
our  souls ;  a  seed  of  everlasting  life,  —  and  if 
1 1  Pet.  i.  19. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  155 

there  be  any  other  thing  that  sinners  need  for 
their  salvation,  doubtless  this  also  is  waiting 
to  be  discovered  in  the  atonement. 

The  only  false  view  is  that  which  questions 
the  reality  of  any  of  these  blessings.  The  only 
dangerous  view  is  that  which  interprets  any 
one  of  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  merely 
formal  and  artificial,  and  to  deny  the  necessity 
of  the  others.  All  views  are  true  which  recog- 
nize, through  experience,  the  love  of  God  in 
Christ  meeting  any  of  our  needs  as  sinful  men, 
and  which  preserve  a  grateful  openness  of  heart 
to  welcome  every  new  ray  of  light  that  comes 
from  the  cross  through  the  experience  of  other 
men. 

After  all  is  said,  out  of  the  fulness  of  each  Tkeun- 
ransomed   heart,  there   still   remains   a   secret  sp.™  c 
reason  for  gratitude,  unuttered  because  not  yet 
perfectly  realized.     "Thanks  be  unto  God  for 
his  unspeakable  gift."1 

i  2  Cor.  ix.  16. 


156  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

n 

The  Love  that  passeth  Knowledge 

The  twofold       If  there  is  a  mystery  in  sin,  there  must  also 
mystery.       j^  a  mvstery  jn  the  atonement.1 

We  can  know  the  love  of  God  in  Christ 
which  meets  all  our  conscious  needs  as  sinners. 
But  that  love,  as  it  makes  provision  for  all  the 
unsearchable  necessities  of  God's  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  universe,  must  be  a  love  that  pass- 
eth knowledge. 

There  are  some  theologians  who  object  stren- 
uously to  this  acknowledgment  of  a  mystery  in 
the  atonement.  It  seems  to  them  that  it  leaves 
"  in  the  very  focus  of  revelation  a  spot  of  pure 
impenetrable  black."2  I  would  rather  say  that 
it  leaves  a  centre  of  "  light  inaccessible  and  full 
of  glory." 

The  humility  of  partial  knowledge  is  not  the 
same  as  the  despair  of  total  ignorance.  "  We 
know  in  part,  and  we  prophesy  in  part."  3  This 
was  the  last  text  from  which  President  James 
McCosh  spoke  in  the  chapel  of  Princeton  Uni- 
versity. "  We  know  in  part,"  said  he  ;  "  but  we 

know!" 

1  Ch.  ii.,  p.  26. 

2  James  Denney,  Studies  in  Theology,  p.  106. 
8  1  Cor.  xiii.  9. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  157 

We  know  sin,  for  example,  in   its  qualities  Sin  only 
and  results,  since  they  are  manifested  in  human  ? artly 

known. 

life  and  in  our  own  souls.  But  we  do  not  per- 
fectly know  it ;  for  its  origin,  and  the  secret 
forces  which  keep  it  alive  and  operative,  though 
it  be  in  itself  a  kind  of  death,  and  the  strange 
subterranean  relations  which  give  it  a  unity 
amid  all  its  diversity,  and  the  mysterious  power 
by  which  it  destroys  freedom  of  will  while 
seeming  to  express  it,  —  these  things  are  hid- 
den from  us.  They  are  inscrutable.  Sin  is  a 
bottomless  gulf.  To  account  for  it  rationally 
would  be  to  justify  its  existence.  "Sin  ex- 
plained," said  Dr.  Edward  G.  Robinson,  "would 
be  sin  defended."  It  is  in  fact  a  kind  of  re- 
versed miracle.  It  is  the  action  of  the  creature 
without  the  creator.  It  takes  place  in  a  sphere 
below  the  reach  of  our  thought.  It  transcends 
reason,  —  downward. 

It  is  fitting,  therefore,  it  is  altogether  to  be  Atonement 
expected,    that    the    atonement    which    is    to  inexPhcablet 
take  away  sin  should  also  transcend  reason,  — 
but  upward.     It  ought  to  be,  as  it  is,  an  inex- 
plicable and  unsearchable  mystery  of  redeeming 
love,  just  as  sin  is  an  inexplicable  and  unsearch- 
able mystery  of   enslaving  hate.     It  ought  to 
cover,  as  it  does,  all  those  secret  relations  in 
which  the  unity  of  righteousness  consists,  just 


158  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

as  sin  entangles  the  soul  in  that  network  of 
subtle  bondage  wherein  the  unity  of  evil  con- 
sists. The  atonement,  in  its  divine  essence, 
must  go  as  far  above  our  knowledge,  as  sin,  in 
its  mortal  perversity,  goes  below  it. 

Mercy  and  Consider  the  subject  from  another  point  of 
view.  The  atonement  is  undoubtedly  the  mani- 
festation of  God's  mercy  in  harmony  with  His 
justice.  But  what  is  mercy,  and  what  is  jus- 
tice, in  our  knowledge  of  them,  but  fragments 
of  a  great  circle  which  sweeps  far  beyond  our 
vision.  So  far  as  logic  goes,  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  appears  like  an  absolutely  impossible  thing. 
An  offence  once  committed  must  stand  on  the 
books  forever  as  a  thing  to  be  condemned  and 
punished.  So  far  as  logic  goes,  the  execution 
of  absolute  justice  seems  to  be  equally  impossi- 
ble. We  have  never  seen  it.  We  cannot  con- 
ceive, nor  explain  it.  "Justice  is  a  fragment, 
mercy  is  a  fragment,  mediation  is  a  fragment ; 
justice,  mercy,  mediation  as  a  reason  of  mercy 
—  all  three ;  what  indeed  are  they  but  great 
vistas  and  openings  into  an  invisible  world  in 
which  is  the  point  of  view  which  brings  them 
all  together."1 

And  yet  in  this  mysterious  region  into  which 

1  Mozley's  University  Sermons,  p.  177. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  159 

the  divine  side  of  the  atonement  reaches,  there   Two  point* 
are  two  things  which  we  ought  to  believe,  even  are  clear' 
though  we  cannot  fully  comprehend  them. 

First,  it  is  necessary  to  the  reality  of  faith  to 
believe  that  the  atonement  has  a  practical  rela- 
tion to  God,  an  actual  and  direct  effect  upon  the 
divine  will  as  well  as  upon  our  will.  "  Christ's 
work  can  be  regarded  as  efficacious  in  the  justifi- 
cation and  reconciliation  of  men  only  in  so  far 
as  we,  at  the  same  time,  recognize  a  reference 
of  that  work  to  God.  Nay,  rather,  His  saving 
operations  upon  men  cannot  be  understood 
except  it  be  presupposed  that  His  doing  and 
suffering  for  that  end  had  also  a  value  for  God, 
whether  that  be  expressed  in  the  notions  of 
satisfaction,  merit,  propitiation,  or  somehow 
otherwise."  1 

Second,  it  is  essential  to  the  moral  integrity 
of  faith  that  we  should  believe  that  the  divine 
justice  and  mercy,  which  are  harmonized  in  the 
atonement,  are  not  different  in  kind,  but  only 
in  degree,  from  mercy  and  justice  as  they  are 
revealed  in  our  fragmentary  knowledge.  There 
can  be  no  satisfaction  of  divine  justice  which 
does  not  justify  itself  in  the  moral  sense.  There 
can  be  no  propitiation  of  mercy  which  introduces 

1  Ritschl,  History  of  the  Christian  Doctrine  of  Justifica- 
tion, etc.,  p.  9. 


160 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement 


Immoral 
analogies 
shut  out. 


False 
phrases  of 
theology. 


a  conflict,  or  an  appearance  of  conflict,  among 
the  attributes  of  God.  Mercy  must  be  merci- 
ful; and  justice,  just. 

This  shuts  out  at  once  the  possibility  of  inter- 
preting the  mystery  of  atonement  by  analogy 
with  ideas  and  figures  drawn  from  imperfect 
and  cruel  systems  of  human  government,  or 
from  corrupt  and  superstitious  systems  of  re- 
ligion. The  notion  of  a  God  whose  vindictive 
anger  demands  a  precise  equivalent  of  suffering 
as  the  condition  of  release  from  penalty  does 
not  belong  to  Christianity.  It  belongs  to  the 
moral  ill-temper  of  a  civilization  which,  like 
that  of  the  middle  ages  or  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  was  essentially  harsh 
and  cruel.  It  belongs  to  a  conception  of  life  in 
which  law  was  relentless  and  vindictive,  —  in 
which  men  were  hung  for  petty  larceny  and 
burned  alive  for  heresy ;  in  which  war  was 
simply  a  colossal  public  revenge,  and  a  cap- 
tured city  was  certain  to  be  sacked.  It  belongs, 
in  its  religious  kinship,  to  paganism,  to  fetich- 
ism,  to  the  cruel,  sensual  religions  of  Mexico 
and  Africa. 

Shadows  of  their  darkness  have  fallen  upon 
the  outer  form  of  Christianity.  Strange  and 
uncouth  words  have  found  their  way  into 
the  dogmatic  books  which  vainly  seek  to  reduce 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement          161 

life  to  logic.  Wild  and  wandering  phrases  of 
bewildered  theologians  have  represented  Christ 
as  exposed  to  the  divine  wrath  in  our  place,  or 
as  "wiping  away  the  red  anger-spot  from  the 
brow  of  God."  Dismal  echoes  from  the  chants 
of  blood-stained  heathen  temples  have  crept 
into  the  hymns  of  the  church,  —  echoes  which 
say  that 

"  On  Christ  Almighty  vengeance  fell 
Which  must  have  sunk  a  world  to  hell," 

or  that 

"  One  rosy  drop  from  Jesus'  heart 
Was  worlds  of  seas  to  quench  God's  ire." 

These  echoes,  these  phrases,  these  words,  have 
undoubtedly  penetrated,  in  a  wavering  and  un- 
certain way,  into  the  ritual,  the  dogma,  the 
outer  circle,  of  Christianity.  It  seems  as  if,  to 
use  the  expression  of  that  great  German  the- 
ologian, Rothe,  "in  His  work  for  man  it  were 
the  constant  fate  of  God  to  be  misunderstood." 
But  these  misunderstandings  cannot  enter,  and 
they  have  not  entered,  into  the  inner  life  where 
Christ  is  truly  manifested  as  the  living  sacrifice 
and  Saviour. 

There  is  not  a  word  in  all  the  New  Testament  Christ  was 
which  implies  that  Christ  offered  a  sacrifice  to 
the  anger  of  God.     It  is  morally  inconceivable 


162  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

that  the  Redeemer  coming  from  the  bosom  of 
the  Father  to  do  His  work  should  ever  have 
been,  in  any  sense,  an  object  of  the  divine  wrath. 
For  that  wrath,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is  not 
a  vindictive  anger  against  sinners ;  it  is  a  pure 
and  holy  indignation  against  sin.  How,  then, 
could  it  have  rested  for  a  single  moment  upon 
Christ  ? 

Nor  is  there  anything  in  the  Bible  to  imply 
that  Christ  has  taken  that  wrath  against  sin 
away.  It  still  exists.  It  still  hates  and  con- 
demns sin  as  much  as  ever. 

Christ  delivers  us  from  the  fear  of  it,  not  by 
subjecting  Himself  to  it,  but  by  separating  us 
from  the  sin  against  which  it  is  directed. 

How,  then,  shall  we  interpret  Christ's  suffer- 
ings? 

How  did  There  was  no  infliction  of  punishment  upon 

suffer?  ^e  innocent  instead  of  the  guilty.  There  was 
no  transference  of  the  demerits  of  the  sinful  to 
the  sinless.  Christ  remained  guiltless ;  man 
remained  guilty.  But  Christ  entered  into  hu- 
manity, freely,  willingly,  taking  on  Himself  all 
its  limitations,  burdens,  pains,  and  sorrows. 
Christ  lived  and  died  with  man  and  for  man. 
He  was  not  merely  a  substitute  :  He  was  a 
representative.  He  was  not  thrust  into  our 
place  :  He  shared  our  lot ;  and  if  that  sharing 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  163 

involved  a  sacrificial  death  upon  the  cross,  if 
there  was  no  other  way  in  which  He  could  be 
one  with  sinners,  and  make  them  one  with 
Himself,  and  lift  them  out  of  guilt  and  doom, 
save  by  dying  for  their  sins,  what  then  ? 

Does  the  recognition  of  this,  as  a  mysterious 
fact  revealed  in  the  crucifixion,  cast  any  stain 
upon  the  justice  of  God?  Not  so  thought 
Christ,  who  shrank  from  the  cross,  yet  said, 
"  Father,  not  my  will,  but  thine  be  done." 
Not  so  thought  the  Apostles,  who  saw  in  Christ 
crucified  the  perfect  revelation  of  the  righteous- 
ness and  love  of  God.  Not  so  thought  such 
a  Christian  as  Phillips  Brooks.  The  inner  life 
of  Christendom  finds  a  true  expression  in  his 
sermon  on  The  Conqueror  from  Edom. 

"My  friends,"  he  says,  "far  be  it  from  me 
to  read  all  the  deep  mystery  that  is  in  this 
picture.  Only  this  I  know  is  the  burden  and 
soul  of  it  all,  this  truth,  that  sin  is  a  horrible, 
strong,  positive  thing,  and  that  not  even  Divin- 
ity grapples  with  him  and  subdues  him  except 
in  strife  and  pain.  What  pain  may  mean  to  the 
Infinite  and  Divine,  what  difficulty  may  mean 
to  Omnipotence,  I  cannot  tell.  Only  I  know 
that  all  that  they  could  mean,  they  mean  here. 
This  symbol  of  the  blood  bears  this  great  truth, 
which  has  been  the  power  of  salvation  to  mill- 


164  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

ions  of  hearts,  and  which  must  make  this  con- 
queror the  Saviour  of  your  hearts,  too,  the  truth 
that  only  in  self-sacrifice  and  suffering  could 
even  God  conquer  sin.  Sin  is  never  so  dread- 
ful as  when  we  see  the  Saviour  with  that  blood 
upon  His  garments.  And  the  Saviour  Himself 
is  never  so  dear,  never  wins  so  utter  and  so 
tender  a  love,  as  when  we  see  what  it  has  cost 
Him  to  save  us.  Out  of  that  love,  born  of  His 
holy  suffering,  comes  the  new  impulse  after  a 
holy  life  ;  and  so,  when  we  stand  at  last  purified 
by  the  power  of  grateful  obedience,  binding  our 
holiness  and  escape  from  our  sin  close  to  our 
Lord's  struggle  with  sin  for  us,  it  shall  be  said 
of  us  that  we  have  '  washed  our  robes  and  made 
them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.' " l 
Divine  That  the  divine  mercy  is  satisfied  in  this 

justice          conception  of  the  atonement,  no  one  can  doubt. 

satisfied. 

But  how  is  the  satisfaction  of  the  divine  justice 
manifested  in  this  view  ?  What  glimpse  does 
it  give  us  of  a  holy  law  vindicated,  an  eternal 
righteousness  maintained? 

It  seems  to  me  that  it  certainly  shows  us  one 
thing,  however  much  it  leaves  still  hidden  from 
our  knowledge  in  the  unsearchable  counsels  of 
God.  It  shows  us  that  God  so  honours  and 
upholds  the  moral  law  by  which  He  governs 
i  Phillips  Brooks,  Sermons,  Vol.  I,  p.  53. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement         165 

the  world,  that  not  even  Christ  could  come  into 
union  with  humanity,  not  even  Christ  could 
become  man,  without  sharing  the  consequences 
of  man's  sin.  Christ  was  not  punished  for  sins 
that  He  had  never  done.  Christ  was  not  pun- 
ished for  our  sins.  Christ  was  not  punished 
at  all.  But  because  our  sins  deserve  punish- 
ment, Christ,  having  become  one  with  us, 
endured  the  shame  and  the  cross,  poured 
out  His  soul  unto  death  and  was  numbered 
with  the  transgressors,  suffered  and  died  as  the 
human  life  of  God,  because  suffering  and 
death  have  justly  come  upon  the  world  of  sin. 

This  is  indeed  the  noblest  vindication  of  the 
law  that  we  can  possibly  conceive.  It  elevates 
and  illuminates  the  atonement,  so  that  it  shines 
far  above  us,  as  a  supreme  mountain-peak  of 
self-consistent  righteousness.  It  makes  it  & 
part  of  an  eternal  moral  order,  resting  upon 
the  very  nature  of  God,  and  His  relation  to  the 
world  as  its  moral  governor.  It  is  a  doctrine  of 
majesty  and  power. 

Forgiveness  without  atonement,  if  we  could  Forgiveness 
conceive  of   such  a  thing,  would  leave  us  far  Wlth 

atonement. 

more  in  the  dark,  would  present  a  far  greater 
mystery.  But  forgiveness  with  atonement  as- 
sures us  that  God  is  in  eternal  harmony  with 
His  own  law.  He  has  not  permitted  suffering 


166  The  Perfection  of  Atonement 

and  death  to  come  into  the  world  merely  to 
execute  a  personal  vengeance  on  sin  as  an  in- 
sult offered  to  His  majesty.  They  are  the 
expression  of  an  eternal  and  righteous  mode  of 
government.  Their  presence  is  necessary,  and 
just,  and  consistent  with  God's  goodness  and 
love  as  well  as  with  His  wisdom  and  holiness. 
The  Son  of  God,  entering  the  world  to  redeem 
it,  not  from  without  but  from  within,  must 
submit  to  these  conditions. 

He  could  not  be  punished.  That  was  impos- 
sible. But  He  could  suffer  and  die.  And  so 
He  did,  confessing  and  glorifying  the  integrity 
and  solidarity  of  God's  attributes  in  the  moral 
law  of  the  universe.1 

A  mystery         Wherein  that  solidarity  consists,  what  is  the 
of  g  ory.       eternai  fitness  and  propriety  of  atonement  by 
sacrifice   and   suffering,   we   can   neither   fully 
understand  nor  perfectly  explain.    "  The  nature 
of  the  redemptive  act  in  itself  is  not  to  be  com- 
passed nor  uttered  by  the  language  of  human 
understanding."  2     When  we  look  upon  it  "  we 
are  in  the  presence  of  forces  which  issue  from 
.  infinity,  and  pass  out  of  our  sight  even  while 
we  are  contemplating  their  effects."3 

1  Rom.  iii.  25. 

2  Shairp,  Studies  in  Poetry  and  Philosophy,  p.  197. 
»  Lux  Mundi,  pp.  285,  310. 


The  Perfection  of  Atonement  167 

This  confession  of  something  beyond  our 
comprehension  in  the  atonement  runs  through 
all  the  literature  of  the  Christian  religion. 
Some  of  the  theologians,  indeed,  scoff  at  it  and 
reject  it.  But  the  heart  of  the  church  has 
always  felt  it  profoundly,  and  acknowledged  it 
with  adoration.  On  Calvary  we  behold  the 
"love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge."1 

In  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  the 
result  of  attempting  to  define  and  explain 
the  atonement  thoroughly,  is  to  make  it  nar- 
rower and  less  attractive  to  our  hearts.  To 
beings  such  as  we  are,  the  full  meaning  of 
the  cross  can  be  made  perfectly  plain  only 
at  the  cost  of  making  it  less  precious.  We 
know  that  we  need  more  than  we  can  know. 
The  cross  is  most  dear  to  our  hearts  because 
it  is  the  sign  of  an  unsearchable  mystery  of 

saving  love. 

i  Eph.  iii.  19. 


VI 

THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  CROSS 


Weepers,  come  to  this  God,  for  He  doth  weep ; 

Ye  sufferers,  come  to  Him,  for  He  doth  care ; 
Ye  tremblers,  come,  for  He  doth  mercy  keep; 

Come,  ye  who  die,  for  He  doth  still  endure. 

— VICTOR  HUGO, 
ticrit  au  Bos  d'un  Crucifix,  1842. 

The  cross  is  the  guarantee  of  the  gospel :  therefore  it 
has  been  its  standard. 

—  HENRI  FREDERIC  AMIEL, 

Journal  Intime,  April  15, 1870. 


VI 

THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  CROSS 
i 

THE  cross  speaks  silently  but  surely  of  God's  Love's  con- 


great  love  for  sinners.     For  this  reason  it  has 

word. 

become  the  sign  under  which  Christianity  has 
won  its  way  in  a  world  of  sin.  This  is  not  a 
theory  of  theology.  It  is  a  fact  of  history. 
Wherever  the  religion  of  Christ  has  advanced, 
its  song  of  victory  has  been  the  burden  of  the 
ancient  Latin  hymn: 

"  Forward  the  royal  banners  fly, 
The  sacred  cross  shines  out  on  high, 
Where  man's  Creator  stooped  to  die 
In  human  flesh,  to  draw  man  nigh."1 

The  same  burden  is  repeated  in  the  latest  music 
of  the  modern  church: 

"  Onward,  Christian  soldiers, 

Marching  as  to  war, 

With  the  cross  of  Jesus 

Going  on  before."  2 

1  Venantius  Fortunatus,   Vexilla  Eegis  prodeunt,  sixth 
century.  a  Sabine  Baring-Gould,  1865. 

171 


172  The  Message  of  the  Cross 

The  strange       Nothing   could   appear   more  strange,  if  we 
*lffn'  leave   out  of  view  that  interpretation   of   the 

death  of  Jesus  which  comes  from  the  faith  of 
the  atonement,  than  that  the  cross,  the  emblem 
of  the  world's  shame  and  reproach,  should 
become  the  symbol  of  Christian  faith,  the 
treasure  of  Christian  hope,  the  banner  of 
Christian  victory.  How  came  it  to  be  thus 
transformed  ?  What  miracle  has  exalted  the 
instrument  of  death  to  the  place  of  glory  ? 

When  Christianity  came  to  China  under  this 
banner,  the  Chinese  wondered  at  it,  mocked  at 
it,  issued  an  edict  against  it.  This  edict  said: 
"  Why  should  the  worshippers  of  Jesus  rever- 
ence the  instrument  of  His  punishment,  and 
consider  it  so  to  represent  Him  as  not  to  ven- 
ture to  tread  upon  it?  Would  it  be  common 
sense,  if  the  father  or  ancestor  of  a  house  had 
been  killed  by  a  shot  from  a  gun,  or  by  a 
wound  from  a  sword,  that  his  sons  or  grand- 
sons should  reverence  the  gun  or  the  sword  as 
their  father  or  ancestor?"  It  is  a  searching 
question;  and  the  only  answer  to  it  is  in  the 
inner  life,  where  the  cross  of  Jesus  has  been 
planted  as  the  tree  of  peace  and  blessing,  the 
sign  of  divine  forgiveness  and  redeeming  love; 
so  that  the  first  cry  of  faith  is 

"  Simply  to  Thy  cross  I  cling," 


The  Message  of  the  Cross  173 

and  the  last  breath  of  prayer  is 

"  Hold  Thou  Thy  cross  before  my  closing  eyes." 

There  is  a  passage  in  the   Confessions   of  a  The  cross 
Beautiful  Soul  which  tells  the  story  of  human  ^ets  faith. 
experience  before  the  cross. 

" 4  Now,  Almighty  God,  grant  me  the  gift  of 
faith  ! '  This  was  the  prayer  that  came  out  of 
the  deepest  need  of  my  heart.  I  leaned  upon 
the  little  table  beside  me,  and  hid  my  tear- 
stained  face  in  my  hands.  At  last  I  was  in  the 
state  in  which  we  must  be,  if  God  is  to  hear  our 
prayers,  but  in  which  we  so  seldom  are. 

"  Yes,  but  who  could  ever  express,  even  in  the 
dimmest  way,  the  experience  that  came  to  me 
then?  A  secret  influence  drew  my  soul  away 
to  the  cross,  where  Jesus  once  expired.  It  was 
an  inward  leading,  I  cannot  give  it  any  other 
name,  like  that  which  draws  the  heart  to  its 
beloved  one  in  absence,  a  spiritual  approach 
doubtless  far  truer  and  more  real  than  a  dream. 
So  my  soul  drew  near  to  Him  who  became  man 
and  died  upon  the  cross,  and  in  that  moment  I 
knew  what  faith  was. 

"4This  is  faith!'  I  cried,  and  sprang  up  as  if 
half  frightened.  I  tried  to  make  sure  of  my 
experience,  to  verify  my  vision,  and  soon  I  was 
convinced  that  my  spirit  had  received  a  wholly 
new  power  to  uplift  itself. 


174  The  Message  of  the  Cross 

"  In  these  feelings  words  forsake  us.  I  could 
distinguish  clearly  between  my  experience  and 
all  fantasy.  It  was  entirely  free  from  fan- 
tasy. It  was  not  a  dream-picture.  And  yet 
it  gave  me  the  sense  of  reality  in  the  object 
which  it  brought  before  me,  just  as  imagina- 
tion does  when  it  recalls  the  features  of  a  dear 
friend  far  away."1 

Many  are  the  souls  that  have  passed  through 
that  indescribable  experience.  Millions  of  men 
who  have  been  unmoved  by  philosophy  and  un- 
convinced by  argument,  have  yielded  to  the 
mystic  attractions  of  the  cross  of  Jesus.  The 
story  of  this  divine  charm  runs  like  a  thread  of 
gold  through  all  the  many  coloured  literature 
of  Christianity. 

The  cross  in       If  I  were  asked  to  name  the  three  books  out- 
Christian      gide  of  ^  New  Testament  which  lie  closest  to 

literature. 

the  Christian  heart,  and  are  entitled  to  be  called 
the  classics  of  Christian  faith,  I  should  choose 
The  Imitation  of  Christ  and  The  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress and  The  Christian  Year.  There  is  no  dif- 
ference among  them  in  their  testimony  to  the 
power  of  the  cross  of  Jesus  to  draw  men  to 
Him. 

"  Take  up,  therefore,  thy  cross,"  says  Thomas 
a  Kempis,  "  and  follow  Jesus,  and  thou  shalt  go 
i  Wilhelm  Meister's  Lehrjahre,  Vol.  II.,  p.  114. 


The  Message  of  the  Cross  175 

into  life  everlasting.  He  went  before  bearing 
His  cross,  and  died  for  thee  on  the  cross,  that 
thou  mightest  also  bear  thy  cross  and  die  on 
the  cross  with  Him." 

"  So  I  saw  in  my  dream,"  says  John  Bunyan, 
"  that  just  as  Christian  came  up  with  the  Cross, 
his  burden  loosed  from  off  his  shoulders  and  fell 
from  off  his  back,  and  began  to  tumble,  and  so 
continued  to  do,  till  it  came  to  the  mouth  of  the 
sepulchre,  where  it  fell  in,  and  I  saw  it  no  more. 
Then  was  Christian  glad  and  lightsome,  and 
said  with  a  merry  heart,  He  hath  given  me  rest 
by  His  sorrow,  and  life  by  His  death." 

"Is  it  not  strange,"  says  John  Keble  in  his 
poem  on  the  Crucifixion,  — 

"  Is  it  not  strange,  the  darkest  hour 

That  ever  dawned  on  sinful  earth, 
Should  touch  the  heart  with  softer  power 

For  comfort  than  an  angel's  mirth  ? 
That  to  the  cross  the  mourner's  eye  should  turn, 
Sooner  than  where  the  stars  of  Christmas  burn  ? 


"  Lord  of  my  heart,  by  Thy  last  cry, 

Let  not  Thy  blood  on  earth  be  spent : 
Lo,  at  Thy  feet  I  fainting  lie, 

Mine  eyes  upon  Thy  wounds  are  bent; 
Upon  Thy  streaming  wounds  my  weary  eyes 
Wait,  like  the  parched  earth  on  April  skies. 


176  The  Message  of  the  Cross 

"  Wash  me,  and  dry  these  bitter  tears ; 

Oh,  let  my  heart  no  farther  roam,  — 
"Tis  Thine  by  vows  and  hopes  and  fears, 

Long  since.    Oh,  call  Thy  wanderer  home,  — 
To  that  dear  home,  safe  in  Thy  wounded  side, 
Where  only  broken  hearts  their  sin  and  shame  may 
hide." 


The  Message  of  the   Cross  177 


ii 

Doubtless  the  attractive,  healing,  convincing,  The  blessing 
purifying,  pacifying  power  of  the  cross  comes  *' 
from  its  silent  proclamation  of  the  holy  and 
self-sacrificing  love  of  God.  It  reveals  Him 
to  us  as  He  really  is,  —  eternally  willing  to 
forgive  sin,  and  entirely  ready  to  suffer  for 
the  sake  of  making  its  forgiveness  perfect  and 
pure  and  altogether  beyond  question.  It  car- 
ries in  itself  the  marks  of  an  immeasurable 
mercy  ;  a  tender  resolution  to  meet,  for  our 
sake,  requirements  that  are  beyond  our  ken  ; 
a  tranquil  and  complete  assurance  that  God's 
pardon  is  a  holy  pardon,  a  righteous  pardon,  a 
pardon  through  which  "  there  is  no  condemna- 
tion to  those  who  are  in  Christ  Jesus." 1 

But  we  do  not  say  that  this  message  of  the  it  comes  to 

•     . -i  i          ...  «•  -i  -i  -i        •          some  who  do 

cross  is  the  only  ministry  of  peace  and  blessing  no(  under_ 
and  enrichment  that  Christ  has  brought  to  the  stand  it. 
life  of  man.     Nor  do  we  say  that  those  who 
have  failed  to  hear  in  this  message  the  very 
same  words  which  it  brings  to  us,  or  to  inter- 
pret these  words  as  they  have  been  interpreted 
in   our  experience,  have  not  been   blessed  in 
any  way  by  Christ. 

Some  have  followed   Him,  as  Peter  did  at 
i  Bom.  viii.  1. 


178  The  Message  of  the   Cross 

first,  unwilling  to  think  of  His  cross.  Some 
have  trusted  His  forgiving  power,  as  Mary 
Magdalen  did,  without  apprehending  what  His 
forgiveness  would  cost.  Some  have  called 
upon  Him  for  salvation,  as  the  penitent  thief 
did,  without  understanding  the  great  signifi- 
cance of  His  sacrifice.  And  there  are  some 
to-day  who  belong  to  Christ  in  their  hearts 
and  lives,  but  who  have  not  yet  read  clearly 
the  writing  above  the  cross. 
They  are  Pure  and  patient  souls,  companions  of  the 

merciful  labours  of  Jesus,  lovers  of  His  gra- 
cious doctrine,  worshippers  of  His  divine  per- 
fection, illustrators  of  His  meek  and  lowly 
spirit,  whose  lives  are  fragrant  with  the  sweet- 
ness of  the  Master's  name,  of  whose  presence 
the  world  is  glad,  in  whose  lowly  service  the 
heart  of  the  Lord  rejoiceth,  —  surely  of  them 
we  may  say,  If  any  man  have  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
he  is  one  of  His. 

The  saving  shadow  of  the  cross  falls  upon 
these  gentle  lives,  though  they  know  it  not. 
Unconsciously  they  are  sheltered  beside  the 
rock  that  is  higher  than  they.  Christ  did  not 
die  only  for  those  who  call  Him  "Lord."  He 
died  also  for  those  who  minister  to  Him  with- 
out knowing  it. 

But  the  message  which  is  proclaimed  to  the 


The  Message  of  the   Cross  179 

world  by  these  serene  and  untroubled  lives,  —  But  the 
it  is  certainly  a  gospel;  but  is  it,  indeed,  the  Jj2J 
Gospel  for  which  the  great  mass  of  men,  sinful,  deeper 
struggling,  weary,  despondent,  are  longing? 
No  ;  it  is  imperfect.  It  does  not  go  down  to 
the  bottom  of  human  experience.  It  does  not 
meet  the  full  need  of  those  who  labour  and  are 
heavy-laden  under  the  weight  of  sin,  of  those 
who  are  tormented  with  remorse,  of  those  who 
would  give  all  that  they  have  if  they  could  blot 
out  the  fatal  past  and  cast  away  the  burden  of 
their  conscious  guilt.  Poor  strugglers  under 
the  curse  of  evil,  the  vast  majority  of  mankind 
long  passionately  for  the  blessedness  of  the  man 
whose  sins  are  forgiven,  whose  transgressions 
are  covered.  To  such  men  the  gospel  of  the 
Son  of  God,  who  bore  our  sins  in  His  own 
body  on  the  tree,  is  the  real  gospel,  the  veri- 
table "glad  tidings  of  great  joy." 

Christianity  will  cease  to  be  the  religion  of 
the  unshepherded  multitude  when  it  ceases  to 
proclaim  "redemption  through  Christ's  blood, 
even  the  forgiveness  of  sins."  Its  true  trans- 
mitters ever  have  been,  and  ever  must  be,  those 
who  consciously  accept,  believe,  and  trust  the 
message  of  the  cross. 


180 


The  Message  of  the  Cross 


The  growing 
message  of 
the  cross. 


St.  Paul's 
experience. 


Ill 

There  is  no  final  formula  of  the  cross.  Per- 
haps if  it  could  have  been  put  into  a  series  of 
logical  propositions,  the  divine  sacrifice  would 
not  have  been  necessary.  But  God  has  seen  fit 
to  save  men,  not  by  a  system  of  dialectics,  but 
by  an  experience  of  grace. 

This  experience  takes  into  itself  all  the  per- 
manent elements  of  the  soul's  life.  It  includes 
and  interprets  also  all  those  elements  which  are 
progressive,  the  factors  of  man's  moral  being 
which  are  in  process  of  development  through 
the  discipline  of  the  individual  and  the  race. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  "  one  of  the  objects 
of  the  atonement  is  to  form  the  conscience  to 
which  it  makes  its  appeal."1 

It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if,  with  the 
education  of  man's  ethical  nature,  there  were 
not  also  a  real  progress  in  the  interpretation  of 
the  message  of  the  cross.  It  does  not  change ; 
it  unfolds.  It  is  not  transmuted ;  it  is  trans- 
lated. 

We  can  see  how  it  grew  in  the  epistles  of  St. 
Paul.  It  was  the  same  gospel  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  of  his  life.  But  it  found  new 


1  Alexander  Mackennal,  The  Atonement :  a  Symposium, 
London,  1883,  p.  19. 


The  Message  of  the  Gross  181 

expressions  and  took  larger  forms.  It  meant 
one  thing  in  Thessalonica,  and  more  of  the  same 
thing  in  Galatia,  and  more  of  the  same  thing  in 
Corinth,  and  more  of  the  same  thing  in  Rome, 
until,  finally,  it  rose  to  its  height  in  the  epistles 
of  the  imprisonment,  where  it  appears  as  the 
good  news  of  the  reconciliation  of  all  things, 
"  whether  they  be  things  in  earth  or  things  in 
heaven."1 

There  are  three  great  ideas  in  which  the  Three  pro- 
human    race    has   made    an    immense    ethical  9™sswe 

ideas. 

advance.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  all  of  these 
advancing  ideas  must  have  an  influence  upon 
our  interpretation  of  the  message  of  the  cross, 
and  must  open  new  vistas  of  wondrous  glory  in 
the  circle  of  its  universal  significance. 

The  first   of  these   ideas   is   the   unity  and  Human 
solidarity  of  mankind.     It  is  characteristic  of  brotherho°* 
modern  thought  that,  in  its  view, 

"The  individual  withers,  and  the  world  is  more  and 
more."2 

Vast  sociological  tables  are  compiled,  covering 
fche  physical  peculiarities  and  social  customs, 
the  arts  and  industries,  the  family  ties  and 
ethical  conceptions,  the  forms  of  government 

1  Col.  i.  20.  2  Tennyson,  Locksley  Hall. 


182  The  Message  of  the   Cross 

and  modes  of  worship  of  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men,  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe.  The 
causes  of  the  rise  or  decline  of  certain  tribes  are 
investigated  ;  the  secret  bonds  which  unite  the 
generations  on  an  upward  or  downward  scale 
are  traced ;  the  average  intelligence  of  com- 
munities is  measured  ;  the  average  welfare  of 
the  world  is  estimated ;  the  collective  view  of 
mankind  predominates  in  the  thoughtful  mind 
of  to-day.  A  stone  is  thrown  into  the  water  in 
America.  Its  ripples  are  followed  and  noted 
on  the  farthest  shores  of  the  islands  of  the  sea. 
Men  are  many  ;  but  humanity  is  one. 

It  would  be  singular  and  unfortunate  if  this 
new  view  of  life  did  not  bring  new  and  larger 
meanings  into  the  message  of  the  cross.  It  must 
be  the  meeting-point  of  races,  as  well  as  the 
landmark  of  centuries.  It  must  reconcile  man 
with  men,  as  well  as  men  with  God.  It  must 
be  an  opener  of  closed  doors,  a  conciliator  of 
estranged  peoples. 

The  charter       The  universal  charter  of  the  cross,  —  "  Go  ye 

of  the  cross.  therefore  and  disciple  all  nations,"1  — forgotten 

and  obscured  in  ages  of  particularism,  revives 

in  ages  of  human  brotherhood.     A  gospel  of 

limited  atonement  becomes  a  manifest  absurdity 

of  selfishness.     Sacrifice  for  others  —  one  man 

i  Matt,  xxviii.  19. 


The  Message  of  the  Cross  183 

for  another,  one  race  for  another,  and  Christ 
for  all  —  is  seen  to  be  built  into  the  very 
structure  of  Christianity. 

If  the  modern  world  is  to  hear  the  message 
of  the  cross,  it  must  speak  the  language  of  to-day 
—  the  language  of  universal  atonement  and 
foreign  missions. 

Another  idea  in  which  there  has  been  a  great  The  purpose 
advance  is  the  notion  of  law.  In  the  first  °flaw' 
stage  of  human  progress,  the  concept  of  law 
is  chiefly  vindictive ;  it  simply  destroys  the 
offender.  In  the  next  stage,  it  takes  on  a 
nobler  aspect  and  becomes  a  system  which  in- 
flicts retribution  on  the  law-breaker  in  order 
that  its  majesty  may  be  upheld  and  the  peace 
of  society  secured  by  the  wholesome  restraints 
of  fear.  Under  this  conception,  law  punishes 
the  offender  in  order  that  other  men  may  be 
afraid  to  offend.  In  the  third  and  highest 
stage,  the  reformative  principle  of  law  comes 
into  clear  view  and  takes  the  leadership. 
The  regulative  idea  does  not  vanish.  The 
idea  of  a  positive  guilt  in  crime  is  not  lost. 
But  both  become  subordinate  to  the  higher 
idea  of  a  moral  purpose  in  law, — the  rescue  and 
reformation  of  the  offender.  Rectoral  justice 
still  remains  a  necessity  of  government,  but 


184  The  Message  of  the  Cross 

reformative    justice    appears   as    the    supreme 
necessity  of  a  moral  order  of  society. 

No  man  can  study  the  history  of  laws,  no 
man  can  read  the  story  of  prison  reform  and 
compare  the  penal  statutes  of  three  centuries 
ago  with  those  of  to-day,  without  perceiving 
that  there  has  been  a  wonderful  progress  in 
this  direction.  And  side  by  side  with  it,  not 
always  with  equal  steps,  but  always  in  the  same 
direction,  we  see  a  progress  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  atonement. 

The  larger  The  old  idea,  that  Christ  died  because  God 
was  insulted  an(i  must  punish  somebody,  fades 
out.  The  conception  of  the  death  of  Jesus  as 
a  mere  exhibition  of  governmental  severity  for 
the  sake  of  keeping  order  in  the  universe, 
becomes  too  narrow.  The  measuring  of  the 
precise  amount  of  Christ's  suffering,  as  a  quid 
pro  quo  for  an  equal  amount  of  penalty  incurred 
by  human  sin,  no  longer  satisfies  the  moral 
sense.  The  cross  itself,  with  its  simplicity,  its 
generosity  of  sacrifice,  its  evident  reforming 
and  regenerating  power  upon  the  heart,  — the 
cross  itself  leads  the  race  upward  and  onward 
in  the  interpretation  of  its  message. 

Whatever  else  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  may 
mean,  whatever  unsearchable  necessities  of  the 
divine  government  they  may  meet,  they  must 


The  Message  of  the  Cross  185 

meet  this  great  requirement,  this  ultimate  ideal 
of  all  moral  law.  Their  end  must  be  right- 
eousness, their  purpose  must  be  "to  make  us 
good." 

So  the  cross  comes  with  a  deeper  message  The 
than  mere  vindication  of  law,  or  mere  exemption 
from  penalty.  It  says  to  every  man  :  "  Christ 
was  crucified  with  thee,  that  thou  mightest  be 
crucified  with  Him.  He  died  for  thee,  that 
thou  shouldest  not  henceforth  live  unto  thyself, 
but  unto  Him  who  died  for  thee  and  rose  again. 
Rise  with  Him  into  the  new  life.  Never  de- 
spair. Never  surrender  to  remorse  or  fear  or 
death.  Come  up  with  Christ,  come  on  with 
Christ,  into  the  ransomed  life." 


There  is  one  more  idea  in  which  there  has  The  inward- 
been  a  real  advance;  and  that  is,  the  idea  of  ness°fsin- 
sin.  Here  I  do  not  think  it  is  possible  for  us 
to  trace  the  progress  through  the  centuries,  as 
we  can  trace  the  ideas  of  human  solidarity  and 
of  law.  But  certainly  there  is  in  the  deepest 
and  best  modern  thought  a  more  profound  and 
vital  conception  of  the  nature  of  sin,  than  there 
was  in  the  ages  when  it  was  imagined  that  a 
murderer  or  an  adultress  could  "square  the 
record"  by  building  a  church  or  endowing  a 
monastery.  I  think  we  feel  now,  if  we  admit 


186 


The  Message  of  the   Cross 


The  cross 
and  the 
Comforter. 


that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  sin  at  all,  that  it 
cannot  be  in  any  sense  a  mere  external.  "  The 
laws  of  God  are  written  in  the  human  soul,  and 
the  sin  of  man  is  a  sin  against  the  law  of  his 
own  nature."  l 

There  is  an  unnaturalness  in  sin  which  is  the 
worst  kind  of  unworthiness.  It  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  taken  away  by  any  outward  pardon, 
by  any  formal  justification  at  the  bar  of  a  law 
which  is  external  to  us.  Not  only  must  the 
law  which  is  above  us  be  fulfilled,  but  also  the 
law  which  is  within  us  must  be  restored.  This 
can  only  be  done  by  the  renewal  of  a  vital  com- 
munion with  God,  who  is  the  author  of  both 
laws.  He  must  be  our  deliverer  outwardly  and 
inwardly,  — 

"  Be  of  sin  the  double  cure 
Save  me  from  its  guilt  and  power." 

The  cross  speaks  to  us  not  only  of  the  death 
of  Christ  for  us,  but  of  the  life  of  the  Spirit  in 
us.  This  was  the  interpretation  which  Jesus 
Himself  put  upon  it.  He  said,  "  It  is  expedient 
for  you  that  I  go  away  :  for  if  I  go  not  away 
the  Comforter  will  not  come  unto  you."2  Cer- 
tainly we  have  not  entered  into  the  full  mean- 
ing of  Christ's  death  until  we  have  learned  to 


1  Lyman  Abbott,  The  Evolution  of  Christianity. 

2  John  xvi.  7. 


The  Message  of  the  Gross  187 

see  in  it  the  condition  and  the  means  of  the  dis- 
pensation of  the  Spirit. 

I  do  not  profess  to  know  the  significance  of 
this  on  the  divine  side.  Why  the  Comforter 
would  not  come  unless  Christ  went  away, 
we  cannot  tell.  But  on  the  human  side  the 
truth  is  not  difficult  to  apprehend.  The  vision 
of  Christ's  suffering  and  death  makes  it  in- 
finitely easier  for  us  to  receive  the  Comforter. 
It  breaks  the  bonds  of  that  rigid  and  pedantic 
notion  of  God  which  exhibits  Him  as  remote, 
inflexible,  impassible.  It  shows  us  that  He  is 
great  enough  and  good  enough  to  suffer  with 
us  in  order  to  deliver  us  from  sin.  It  diffuses 
through  the  soul  the  fragrance  of  a  new  kind 
of  forgiveness,  —  the  only  real  forgiveness, — a 
forgiveness  which  not  only  blots  out  guilt,  but 
opens  the  heart's  door  to  the  Spirit  and  restores 
divine  fellowship. 

Thus  it  seems  to  me  that  the  message  of  the  The  unfold- 
cross,  because  it  is  a  living  message,  must  be 
ever  growing  and  drawing  new  words  into  its 
service,  and  charging  them  with  richer  meaning. 

The  theory  of  the  atonement  will  never  be 
completed  until  the  discipline  and  education  of 
humanity  are  completed. 

I  turn  to  the  literature  of  Christianity,  and  I 


188  The  Message  of  the   Cross 

find  there  the  experience  of  peace  with  God, 
through  the  atonement  of  Christ  crucified, 
uttered  in  a  thousand  ways,  expressed  in  a 
thousand  forms  which  rise  spontaneously  out 
of  the  varying  characters  and  conditions  of 
men.  This  is  the  strange  thing,  the  beautiful 
thing,  the  vital  thing,  about  this  experience. 
It  is  not  possible  to  reduce  it  to  one  fixed  and 
final  statement.  It  is  forever  changing,  and 
growing,  and  expanding,  because  it  is  a  living 
experience,  an  ethical  reality,  an  element  of  the 
moral  life.  And  as  a  man's  thought  of  sin  and 
his  knowledge  of  sin  are  deepened  by  living,  as 
his  idea  of  God  and  his  fellowship  with  God  are 
purified  and  uplifted  by  believing,  so  his  sense 
of  reconciliation  with  God  through  Christ  must 
grow  purer  and  deeper  and  loftier  to  keep  its 
place  in  his  inner  life. 

To  each  man       You  come  to  a  man  with  your  theory  of  the 
frln^his      atonement,  and  he  says,  "Yes,  perhaps  it  means 
own  bless-      that  to  you,  but  it  means  something  else,  some- 
thing far  more  precious,  to  me."     You  come  to 
another  man,  and  he  says  :  "  No  doubt  there  is 
truth  in  your  view,  but  it  is  not  all  the  truth. 
Christ  crucified  means  more  than  that  to  me." 
And  so  it  ought  to  be,  so  it  must  be,  if  the 
atonement  has  a  real  place  in  the  inner  life. 
We  ought  not  to  expect,  we  ought  not  to  wish, 


The  Message  of  the  Cross  189 

that  it  should  ever  be  defined  or  explained  in 
a  formula  valid  for  all  men  and  for  all  time. 
Whatever  it  may  be  in  itself,  whatever  it  may 
be  in  its  objective  relations  to  God's  govern- 
ment of  the  world,  for  us  it  must  be  a  progres- 
sive, growing,  expanding  element  of  spiritual 
peace  and  power. 


190  The  Message  of  the  Cross 


IV 


The  cross  This  expanding  message  of  the  cross,  then,  is 

toda  d  what  I  believe  to  be  the  true  gospel  for  a  world 
of  sin.  The  heart  of  it  never  changes.  "  Herein 
is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  he 
loved  us,  and  sent  his  Son  to  be  the  propitia- 
tion for  our  sins." 

Is  such  a  gospel  as  this  unsuited  to  the 
present  age?  Is  such  a  gospel  as  this  a  low 
gospel,  a  narrow  gospel,  an  immoral  gospel,  an 
obsolete  gospel,  a  gospel  to  be  ashamed  of  in 
the  presence  of  learning  and  refinement  and 
moral  earnestness  ?  Let  the  men  whose  hearts 
have  been  cleansed  and  ennobled  by  it  —  the 
men  like  Paul,  and  Augustine,  and  Francis  of 
Assisi,  and  Martin  Luther,  and  John  Wesley  — 
make  answer. 

Is  such  an  experience  as  this  an  unreal  expe- 
rience, a  fantastic  thing,  a  thing  of  no  great 
consequence,  of  no  large  influence  in 

"  The  very  world  which  is  the  world 
Of  all  of  us,  —  the  place  where  in  the  end 
We  find  our  happiness,  or  not  at  all  "  ? 

Let  the  answer  come  from  the  triumph  in  the 
midst  of  sorrow,  the  courage  in  the  face  of 
death,  and  the  steadfast  devotion  to  every 


The  Message  of  the   Cross  191 

noble  cause,  of  those  who  have  learned  to  say, 
"  The  life  that  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  by 
the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me  and 
gave  himself  for  me." 

Is  such  a  message  as  this  to  the  inner  life  of 
man  no  longer  needed,  no  longer  of  value,  in 
these  latter  days  of  enlightenment,  in  these 
high  places  of  culture?  Let  the  unchanged, 
struggling,  sinful  heart  of  man  make  answer. 

Burdened  with  the  weight  of  responsibilities 
to  which  we  have  never  lived  up,  disenchanted 
by  the  sad  advance  of  a  knowledge  with  which 
our  vital  wisdom  has  not  kept  pace,  stained 
and  dishonoured  by  sins  of  selfishness  and  pride 
and  impurity  and  unbrotherliness  and  greed  and 
avarice  and  anger,  which  our  very  privileges 
charge  with  a  tenfold  guilt,  —  delicate  and  self- 
complacent  offenders,  men  who  know  but  do 
not  practise,  heirs  of  all  the  ages,  who  have 
bartered  our  birthright,  and  declined  our  duty, 
and  sinned  against  light  a  thousand  times, — 
how  stand  we  in  the  sight  of  God,  in  these 
latter  days,  without  a  Saviour  from  our  sins  ? 

Is  this  an  easy  age,  a  careless  age,  a  peaceful, 
secure,  sin-free  age  for  the  inner  life?  On 
every  side,  with  growing  knowledge,  the  shades 
of  the  prison-house  close  around  us. 

The    moralists   tell    us    of    ever   increasing 


192  The  Message  of  the  Cross 

obligations,  duties,  demands  of  personal  and 
social  righteousness.  Never  has  the  meaning 
of  sin  as  an  offence  against  the  brotherhood  of 
man  made  itself  so  clear  or  so  dreadful  to  the 
sensitive  spirit  as  now.  Never  has  the  selfish- 
ness that  pervades  our  social  order,  our  politi- 
cal organization,  and  our  commercial  system 
been  so  fully  unmasked  to  our  reluctant  and 
troubled  conscience.  We  see  our  careless, 
comfortable  indulgences  dishonoured  by  the 
spirit  of  greed  which  rejoices  in  them  with- 
out a  thought  of  the  misery  of  our  fellowmen. 
We  see  our  glittering  luxuries  stained  with 
the  blood  of  those  who  suffer  and  perish  that 
we  may  live  at  ease. 

It  is  not  that  this  age  is  worse  than  those 
which  have  gone  before  it.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  a  little  better.  But  far  greater  than  its 
advance  in  virtue  has  been  the  increase  in 
its  knowledge  of  its  own  vices  and  sins.  The 
sense  of  human  fellowship  and  mutual  respon- 
sibility, the  deepening  faith  that  every  one  of 
us  is  in  a  true  and  vital  bond  "his  brother's 
keeper,"  and  the  clearer  recognition  of  our 
own  share  —  passive  or  active  —  in  the  cruel 
influences  that  have  bowed  the  back,  and 
dulled  the  brain,  and  darkened  the  heart  of 
"the  Man  with  the  Hoe," 


The  Message  of  the  Cross  193 

"  And  made  him  dead  to  rapture  and  despair, 
A  thing  that  grieves  not  and  that  never  hopes, 
Stolid  and  stunned,  a  brother  to  the  ox," 1 

—  these  things  have  put  a  new  and  dreadful 
emphasis  upon  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin. 
It  does  not  need  that  a  man  of  to-day 
should  wade  through  drunkenness  or  debauch- 
ery, should  be  guilty  of  theft  or  adultery,  in 
order  to  find  the  bitterest  experience  of  sin. 
If  the  Divine  Spirit  has  touched  him  with 
this  new  conviction  of  a  neglected,  despised, 
dishonoured  brotherhood,  he  sees  again,  as 
Christ  taught  His  disciples,  that  the  shame 
of  sin  lies  not  in  the  outward  life,  but  in  the 
inmost  heart.  He  recognizes,  in  the  delicate 
and  dainty  motions  of  his  own  selfish  passions, 
a  guilt  which  will  seem  to  him  deeper  than 
that  of  the  poor  daughters  of  pleasure  who 
walk  the  city  streets.  His  own  subtle  ambi- 
tions, his  intellectual  pride,  his  self-indulgence, 
the  complacency  and  arrogance  of  what  he 
fondly  calls  his  religious  life,  look  him  in  the 
face  with  eyes  as  dark  and .  threatening  as 
those  of  the  man  who  strikes  his  brother  down 
in  blind  anger.  Far  above  his  self-flattered 
"life  of  comparative  purity  under  the  domi- 
nation of  conscience "  rises  the  vision  of  the 
1  Edwin  Markham,  The  Man  with  the  Hoe. 


194  The  Message  of  the  Cross 

true  Christ-life  of  stainless  sacrifice  under  the 
domination  of  love,  —  the  only  life  that  is 
acceptable  in  the  sight  of  the  All-Father  God. 

Yes,  in  the  light  of  to-day,  the  standard  of 
moral  perfection  rises,  the  requirements  of  a 
holy  law  of  life  appear  more  lofty,  more 
searching,  more  exacting.  But  while  the 
standard  rises,  the  inspiration,  without  the 
message  of  the  Cross,  sinks  and  fails. 

Students  of  life  tell  us  of  the  permanence 
and  the  power  of  evil,  the  taint  of  blood,  the 
force  of  degeneration,  the  heavy  fetters  of 
heredity.  The  God  who  demands  so  much 
of  us  appears  more  and  more  remote,  inacces- 
sible, unable  or  unwilling  to  help  us.  What  N 
comfort  can  philosophy,  with  its  vague  and 
distant  theories  of  God,  bring  to  our  hearts 
feebly  fluttering  in  the  toils  of  fate?  What 
consolation  can  art,  with  its  cool  and  delicate 
visions  of  unrealized  ideals,  afford  to  those 
who  are  languishing  and  consuming  in  life's 
fierce,  irremediable  fever  ?  It  is  little,  indeed, 
that  they  can  do  for  us  without  a  true  gospel 
of  salvation  from  sin. 

We  need,  in  this  day  of  deepening  insight, 
increasing  labour,  and  heavier-pressing  burden 
of  the  soul,  —  now,  more  than  ever,  we  need 
to  know  a  God  who  is  not  only  above  us, 


The  Message  of  the  Cross  195 

but  also  with  us  and  for  us.  A  God  who  is 
willing  to  suffer  with  His  suffering  children ; 
a  God  who  Himself  freely  pays  the  greatest 
price  that  ever  can  be  paid  for  the  vindication 
of  the  holy  law  of  life  and  the  redemption  of 
mankind  from  evil ;  a  God  whose  sacrifice  is 
the  Atonement,  taking  away  the  sin  of  the 
world,  covering  alike  the  transgressions  of 
the  ignorant  and  the  degraded  and  the  deeper 
offences  of  the  enlightened  and  the  privileged, 
and  giving  to  all  who  repent  a  sure  pledge  of 
Divine  forgiveness  and  help  —  to  believe  in 
such  a  God  is  peace  and  courage  and  a  new  hope 
for  the  world.  Where  shall  the  men  of  to-day 
find  this  Immanuel,  this  present,  sympathizing, 
suffering,  redeeming  Love  ? 

On  the  Cross  of  Calvary  this  God  is  re- 
vealed, crowned  with  thorns  and  enduring 
death  for  our  sake. 

«  The  very  God !  think,  Abib ;  dost  thou  think? 
So  the  All-great  were  the  All-loving,  too,  — 
So  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying,  « O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here ! 
Face  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself ! 
Thou  hast  no  power,  nor  mayest  conceive  of  mine, 
But  love  I  gave  thee  with  myself  to  love, 
And  thou  must  love  me  who  have  died  for  thee  ! ' " 


!TY 

•'&• 


SIXTH  EDITION.     PRICE  f}.25. 


The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt 

BY  THE  REV. 

HENRY   VAN    DYKE,    D.D.,  LL.D. 


A  REVISED  EDITION  WITH  A  NEW  PREFACE. 


The  Interior,  Chicago. 

"  Dr.  Van  Dyke's  '  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,'  which  is  often  called  the  finest 
apologetic  of  modern  times,  is  constantly  coming  out  in  new  editions.  It  is  a  book 
that  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  —  and  heart  —  of  every  thoughtful  Christian  of  the 
day." 

The  Academy,  London. 

"  Dr.  Van  Dyke's  lectures  form  one  of  the  most  eloquent  defences  of  Christian- 
ity that  we  have  yet  met  with." 

The  New  York  Times. 

"The  most  vital,  suggestive,  helpful  book  we  know  in  the  whole  range  of 
theological  writing  at  this  period." 

The  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  London. 

"  The  book  can  be  heartily  recommended  as  a  sincere  and  thoughtful  attempt 
to  show  the  consistency  of  Christianity  with  truth." 

The  Outlook,  New  York. 

"  In  our  judgment,  Dr.  Van  Dyke's  '  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt'  takes  a  high 
rank  among  modern  contributions  to  the  philosophy  of  religion." 

Rev.  Dr.  Geo.  P.  Fisher,  in  The  Expositor,  New  York. 

14  He  has  given  us.  a  fresh  and  instructive  work  which  nobly  justifies  his  triple 
distinction  as  a  preacher,  a  theologian,  and  a  man  of  letters." 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY,  Publishers, 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,   MEW  YORK. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


NOV   19  1947 


C' 


LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


